During a press conference after the dramatic capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife by American forces, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Cuba may be the next nation to bear the brunt of American diplomatic – and potentially military – pressure.
Trump told journalists that Cuba is a “failed state” whose “people have suffered for many years”. “Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about,” he promised.
Read more: Maduro captured after U.S. launches airstrikes on Caracas
Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of State, added: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government I would be concerned at least.”
Rubio also noted that many of Maduro’s guards were Cuban, hinting that the island nation’s cooperation with the Venezuelan leader could serve as a pretext for any other potential regime change operation.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has unequivocally condemned the U.S. military operation in Venezuela, decrying it as “criminal” and “state terrorism against the fierce Venezuelan people.”
France, Russia, China and the European Union have also accused the U.S. operation of contravening international law.
Venezuela has been Cuba’s closest regional ally since the presidential victory of Maduro’s predecessor and left-wing revolutionary Hugo Chávez in 1998. The alliance has helped sustain the ailing Cuban economy: approximately 60% of Cuba’s total fuel and crude oil imports came from Venezuela in the first ten months of 2025.
Since Trump’s re-election in November 2024, tensions between the U.S. and Cuba have consistently escalated. The Trump administration has bolstered existing sanctions against Cuba by reinstating the country to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, more rigorously enforcing a ban on American tourism to the island nation, and restraining commerce while pressuring U.S. allies to vote in favour of the longstanding American economic embargo against Cuba at the UN General Assembly.
Rubio has been particularly outspoken in his criticism of the Cuban regime, accusing the Díaz-Canel government of serving as a “puppet for Communist China, Iran, and […] Russia”.
The American politician, who is himself of Cuban heritage, also has a history of advocating for regime change in Venezuela because of the consequent debilitating effect on the Cuban government.
Alian Collazo, a Cuban-American former Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives and current Executive Director of Cuban Freedom March (CFM), spoke to Latin America Reports about the implications of Maduro’s capture.
“Maduro’s regime was illegitimate” because of its disrespect for Venezuelan “popular sovereignty” and willingness to overturn elections, Collazo argues.
Collazo considers Maduro’s removal “a positive for the freedom of the Americas” and a positive for “Cuba and the cause for a free, democratic Cuba”.
The 2024 Venezuelan elections, which saw Maduro named president, were widely decried as fraudulent.
Read more: Down but not out: Venezuelan opposition building electoral fraud case against Maduro regime
Collazo cites the cooperation of the “Cuban intelligence system” with Venezuelan authorities as key to “propping up Maduro’s regime.”
According to the New York Times, Maduro had made extensive use of Cuban counterintelligence officers and bodyguards for his personal protection in the build-up to his capture by American forces.
Maduro’s forced removal from power, the Trump administration’s revivification of the Monroe doctrine – a 19th-century-era U.S. foreign policy of hemispheric domination – and the traditional ideological animosity between Cuba and the U.S. mean that Cuba is the most likely target for further American regime change operations in the region.
Featured Image: Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez pictured together in Argentina
Image Credit: Chupacabras via Flickr
License: Creative Commons Licenses
