Communism failed in Cuba long ago.  From early on, the Cuban “Revolution” had to be subsidized by the Soviet Union.  That covered over many of the economic failings of a centrally-planned mono-crop agricultural economy.  The political failings were covered over by prisons and forced emigration.  Then the Soviet Union collapsed, the subsidies ended, and Cuban went into a downward spiral.  Conditions of life for ordinary Cubans have grown worse and worse.  All sorts of things were going wrong before President Trump’s recent blockade: rice production was falling; the electricity generation was falling, causing rolling blackouts; the predominance of sugar cultivation limited how much food farmers could produce.  Only an oil subsidy from Venezuela kept anything functioning.[1] 

            President Donald Trump is a lame-duck.  That means he’s free to try anything he wants.[2]  With regard to Cuba, he seems to want the Communist regime gone.  He got the successors to Maduro in Venezuela to turn off the oil tap.  Now, Cuba has run out of diesel and fuel oil, and gas stations are closed.  Garbage trucks can’t collect, so piles of trash line the streets in Havana and elsewhere.  Most of the electricity is turned off for most of the day to most of the people.  “Communism has ended light pollution!” 

            The director if the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, paid a call on the Cuban government.  The US would give Cuba $100 million in aid.  There was a catch: “new people” have to be put in place to carry out “meaningful reforms.”  That is, “y’all need to bolt to Spain and right quick.”  He got no takers. 

            Hamas in Gaza, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela, and Cuba: dictatorships are willing to allow intense harm to their “citizens” so long as they can hold onto power. 

            If Communism could collapse from a mere lack of popular support, it would have done so many years ago.  It is likely to collapse from an upsurge of public anger and action over the failures of the Revolution.  Should the United States be trying to hustle forward that collapse?   The collapse might be preceded or accompanied by a gigantic boatlift of refugees.  That would not accord with closing the southern border.  In Madrid cafes, Cuban Communists are going to blame the US for all their problems anyway, so why not?  Progressives will argue that overthrowing Cuban Communism creates a moral obligation to help on the part of the United States.  Moral obligation probably isn’t the first thought to occur to the Trump Whitehouse. 

            Viewed from an international relations perspective, Trump appears to be pursuing a “spheres of influence” approach.  He has yarded Nicholas maduro (and his wife) out of their palace in their jammies in order to put them on trial in New York.  He’s been trying to (and maybe succeeding) put the fear of God and the United States into Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum over government complicity in the drug trade.  Now he seems ready to bulldoze Cuba over the brink.  All Western hemisphere countries.  Meanwhile, he’s less forthright in support of Ukraine and Taiwan.  They’re in Eastern Europe and the Far East.  Perhaps that’s forcing things into a pattern that doesn’t exist. 

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[1] “Cuba: Barely holding on as Trump turns out the lights,” and “Cuba: Trump’s next takeover target,” The Week, 29 May 2026, pp. 14, 17. 

[2] He doesn’t seem deeply concerned abut the impact of his actions on the electability of other Republicans.