Seven months after President Donald Trump predicted Cuba would “fall” following the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Washington’s attention appears to be moving elsewhere. The administration’s earlier “Cuba is next” rhetoric has largely disappeared, replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s calls for “patience and persistence” and a longer-term strategy of economic pressure. With ongoing conflict with Iran, a trade war with Canada, instability in Venezuela, and U.S. midterm elections all approaching or underway, the window in which Cuba seemed poised to become a major administration priority may be closing.
This is hardly a new dynamic. Cuba policy has repeatedly been overtaken by larger crises and domestic priorities. But this time, the consequences could be especially grave. The administration has tightened Cuba’s access to energy and external financing, yet talks between the two governments appear stalled — “very stalled,” in the words of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, whose battered regime remains firmly in control.
For the Cuban people, that raises the prospect of an interminably bleak scenario: unbearable economic pressure with no clear path to resolution. Cubans are already enduring multi-day blackouts, shortages, declining public services, and a rapidly shrinking, aging population. Another two years of energy scarcity, economic contraction, and institutional decay will almost certainly deepen the humanitarian crisis, accelerate migration, and further erode the foundations for any eventual recovery — all without necessarily producing political change.
This edition of Cuba Review examines the pieces moving around this increasingly protracted standoff: Washington’s continuing economic-pressure campaign; new deportations, visa freezes, and revocations; and signs of Cuba’s growing economic, demographic, and diplomatic isolation. The immediate danger may no longer be imminent confrontation but prolonged drift: pressure staying high, diplomacy frozen, and the Cuban people continuing to absorb the cost.
