Donald Trump is reportedly planning to oust the president of Cuba but leave the Castro family effectively in charge after bragging that the Caribbean island state was his to “take.”
On Monday, as Cuba experienced a nationwide blackout with dwindling fuel supplies and a crumbling power grid, Trump called the country “a very weakened nation right now.”
“It’s a failed nation,” Trump said in the White House. “They have no money, they have no oil, they have no nothing. They have nice land.” The 79-year-old added, “I do believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba.”
He clarified, “Taking it in some form. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”
The move may depend on negotiations between U.S. and Cuban officials over the island’s future. Key among the U.S. demands is the removal of President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power, four people familiar with the discussions told The New York Times.
While negotiators are signaling that the removal of Díaz-Canel is a must, Trump was not seeking wholesale change to Cuba’s communist government beyond a new leader, according to the Times.
The move echoes the Trump administration’s forced ouster and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, which kept the leftist Chavista regime in power but under a more compliant figurehead.
The Times said the administration was not planning to take action against members of the Castro family, who still wield power behind the scenes in the country of 11 million people. “That is consistent with the general desire of Mr. Trump and his aides to regime compliance rather than regime change in their foreign policy,” it added.
The Miami Herald previously reported that Díaz-Canel’s reign may be coming to an end and a Trump-approved replacement would be installed to push for economic and political changes in Cuba.
The publication said the Trump administration view Díaz-Canel “as an obstacle” to changes they want on the island, following conversations with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former President Raúl Castro’s grandson. Rubio is the son of Cuban migrants.
Sources also told the Herald that the Trump administration found Díaz-Canel too ideological and not powerful enough to push through America’s desired changes.
A U.S. official with knowledge of discussions between Washington and Havana also confirmed Trump’s plans to replace Díaz-Canel to the Associated Press on Monday.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
The country has been ruled by the Communist Party of Cuba for 67 years, led by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 2008, then by his brother Raúl from 2008 to 2018, and now by Díaz-Canel, who has two years left on his presidential term.
The Times report notes that while the Trump administration has told Cuban negotiators that Díaz-Canel must be removed, they are leaving the next steps, including whether they continue with a Communist leader, up to the country to decide.
The publication’s sources also stated America is not planning to take any action against Castro family members, who continue to wield power in the country of 11 million people.
Last Friday, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of Raúl Castro, appeared in public with President Díaz-Canel.
At the time, Díaz-Canel announced the country had begun talks with the U.S. “aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations.”
One source told the Times that the younger Castro, known as Raúlito,had been negotiating directly with Rubio and would likely stay in control behind the scenes--“with another figure who does not bear the Castro last name officially holding office.”
The newspaper said ousting Díaz-Canel could hand Trump a “symbolic win,” as in Venezuela, but would disappoint conservative Cuban exiles who demand nothing less than “wholesale political transformation” in their homeland.
Among those criticising the administration’s maneuvering was the Cuban-American pollster and academic Fernand Amandi, whose Miami firm has carried out polling in Cuba.
“If @marcorubio goes along with this unconscionable act of betrayal to the Cuban people and the Cuban exile community and doesn’t resign his position as @SecRubio then Marco Rubio is the ultimate fraud and as complicit as the thug Castro regime in Cuba’s destruction,” Amandi wrote on X.
“If the Cuban exile community could conceive of a betrayal greater than the one they have blamed on JFK for the Bay of Pigs for the past sixty-five years, this would be it.”
