Geopolitics: Cuba Authoritarian Regime post Maduro

Implications for Cuban Regime Survival

The U.S. military capture of Nicolás Maduro (January 3, 2026), framed by the 2025 National Security Strategy’s “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, marks a strategic shift in U.S. policy in the hemisphere. Rather than seeking rapid regime collapse, the U.S. now appears willing to use coercive tools to manage hostile governments—extracting concessions, preserving institutional continuity, and reshaping regional risk calculations. That precedent and tightening U.S. pressure have severe implications for Cuba, whose survival depended heavily on the Cuba–Venezuela axis; with Venezuela neutralized, Cuba faces acute economic, political, and legitimacy crises that make a negotiated, coerced transition conceivable though difficult. Key points:

• Strategic shock: The Venezuela operation shattered the assumption of enduring U.S. restraint in the Western Hemisphere, showing the U.S. will use limited, targeted force to achieve political effects without triggering broad regional backlash.
• Collapse of Cuba–Venezuela lifeline: U.S. controls on Venezuelan oil and seizures of revenue cut Cuba’s critical financial and energy support, worsening already severe shortages and social distress.
• Deepening Cuban crisis: Widespread poverty, food and medicine shortages, power outages, and near-universal disapproval of government policy have eroded regime legitimacy; past mass protests (11J) signaled a fragile social threshold for unrest.
• Psychological and elite effects: The raid and deaths of Cuban security personnel produced demoralization and forced Havana to admit its military presence abroad, prompting heightened defensive posture and recalculated risks among military and security elites.
• U.S. strategy moving from regime overthrow to coercive regime management: Washington may seek to extract concessions (limit foreign intelligence bases, curb migration, counter-narcotics cooperation, property claims, extraditions) by threatening or using targeted economic and diplomatic levers and conditional engagement, while accepting elite continuity to avoid collapse.
• Transition challenges: Cuba lacks a unified opposition, clear leadership, and democratic institutional memory, complicating any transition; sustained external pressure aligned with deep internal dissent would be required for a negotiated shift away from authoritarian rule.

Shift in US Policy on Cuba to Gradual Change

The Trump administration is pressing Cuba with strict economic measures aimed at forcing political change, but officials — led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team — appear to prefer a gradual, managed transition rather than immediate regime overthrow or military action. U.S. sanctions and disruptions to Cuba’s oil supplies (after moves against Venezuela and Mexico’s reduced shipments) have driven Cuba toward economic crisis, raising fears of collapse, violence and mass migration. Washington is exploring deals with potential insiders (reports name Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro), while Cuban leaders publicly resist demands and insist on sovereignty. Analysts caution that Cuba’s one‑party system, deep regime roots, and lack of an organized internal opposition make a Venezuelan‑style rapid transition unlikely and risky. Key points:

• The U.S. strategy prioritizes economic pressure to induce gradual reforms and avoid a sudden power vacuum that could spark violence or mass migration.
• Sanctions and cuts to oil supplies have pushed Cuba toward its most severe crisis since 1959; Cuba has cut services and faces growing hardship.
• Administration officials have discussed negotiating with potential insiders (reported name: Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro), but Havana rejects outside interference in constitutional matters.
• Analysts warn the Cuban system’s longevity, repression, and absence of internal opposition make rapid regime change unlikely and a managed, cautious approach more probable.
• S. concerns include humanitarian fallout, refugee flows to Florida, and the possibility that collapse would create prolonged instability requiring U.S. involvement.

Potential Help from Major Powers: China and Russia

Cuba’s deepening isolation in 2026 after the U.S. declared a “national emergency” and ramped up sanctions that reactivate a structurally weighty blockade. The capacity and willingness of historical allies (Russia, China, Venezuela) and the Latin American Left had provided effective support against U.S. pressure. Cuba’s possible collapse or marginalization would have profound symbolic and political consequences for the regional Left and for the credibility of a supposedly “multipolar” international order.

The U.S. executive order declaring Cuba an “extraordinary unusual threat” invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and enables tougher sanctions; much of the coercive effect of the blockade already exists, but the new phase raises pressure and the risk of extraterritorial measures.

The practical limits of the blockade (extraterritorial actions, international litigation) and Cuba’s survival strategies do not guarantee protection against escalation through secondary sanctions and U.S. tariff threats. Note that secondary sanctions are a major threat against possible involvement of any outside actors.

Russia and China could help mitigate the impact, but both weigh risks: China is pragmatic, carries financial exposure to Cuba and prioritizes its global agenda; Russia’s support has tended to be cautious and episodic rather than transformative. Our view is neither Russia or China will risk confrontation with US over Cuba.

Regional allies (Brazil, Mexico, and other leftist governments) have shown largely rhetorical solidarity and little willingness to bear real costs; the situation reveals fractures and indifference within the continental Left. Venezuela a key supporter of Cuba is now out of the picture.

Implications of Cuba’s potential fall would be a symbolic and practical blow to the Left in the region and to the credibility of an alternative to the U.S.-led order; the island’s solitude exposes the real limits of the emerging “multipolarity.”

 Recent Historical US-Cuban Relations

Cuba’s hoped post-2014 revival after diplomatic normalization with the U.S. has instead become a deepening crisis. A mix of external shocks (Trump-era sanctions, COVID-19, loss of Venezuelan oil, hurricanes) and internal failures (partial, poorly sequenced economic reforms, rigid one‑party control, bad monetary policy, military-dominated commerce) have produced collapsing GDP, runaway inflation, mass emigration, power blackouts, food and medicine shortages, and political repression. Limited private-sector gains exist but are constrained and uneven, increasing inequality. Major reform or democratization would be required to reverse the decline, but Cuban leaders show little appetite for the decisive changes needed. Key points

• External blows: Trump administration tightened sanctions and travel/remittance restrictions; COVID-19 destroyed tourism; reduced Venezuelan oil aid; recent hurricanes and dengue outbreaks worsened humanitarian conditions.
• Flawed reforms and bad macro policy: Raúl’s cautious liberalization was micromanaged; the 2021 currency unification and money printing caused currency collapse and hyperinflation; state retained preferential exchange rates and interventions that distorted markets.
• Political repression and social unrest: Economic hardship sparked large protests in July 2021, met with harsh crackdowns, arrests, and continued limits on dissent and political reform. Since 2021, over 1 million Cubans have fled the country.
• Private sector growth but constrained: Legalization of larger private firms and diaspora-driven supply chains created important economic activity (by 2024 private sector sizable), yet firms face regulatory limits, restricted access to foreign currency, and competition from military-run conglomerates (GAESA).
• Uncertain international rescue: Moscow and Beijing offer limited, conditional assistance; neither is likely to fully underwrite Cuba’s model. Reliance on external help is risky, even more so now that Venezuela’s support has faded.
• Choice and outlook: Reversing decline requires deeper liberalization (property rights, open foreign investment, unified realistic exchange rates) and likely political opening — steps Cuban leaders appear reluctant to take, making the near-term outlook bleak.