Amitava Mukherjee
(mukherjeeamitava439@gmail.com)
In March last year, Trump said he would have "the honour of taking Cuba." In the same vein, he said, "I can do anything I want with it." Two days later he denied that his country was intimidating Cuba. But the US has positioned its aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz; started a programme of economic sanctions on those countries that are off the Cuban coast; and, since January 29 last, started a programme of economic sanctions on those countries that would cooperate with Cuba by carrying out energy supplies. The purpose is to cripple the Cuban economy.
There are serious concerns among US policymakers regarding their approach to Cuba. It can be either a Venezuela-type direct intervention or effect a regime change in Havana by destroying its economy and social life, which, the US hopes, would result in a countrywide upsurge against the communist government of the island nation. But the all-important question is whether the US has finally made up its mind for any decisive intervention in Cuba after the stiff military resistance it has received in the Iran war. But Trump's later statement that the US would rather not intimidate Cuba and that he only wants to help a "failed country" for "humanitarian reasons" indicates that the US administration may still be developing an action plan.
If ultimately the US invades Cuba, the reason will be ideological and not strategic, as was the case with the attack on Iran. Tehran has oil, petrodollars and an impressive array of arsenals in spite of the sanctions imposed by the US. Cuba also suffers from US sanctions, dating back to the 1960s. It has no oil industry and, until 1992, survived mostly on Russian help. The mainstay of its economy is tourism, which is languishing under US pressure.
Since the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by the US and the Cuban exiles in 1961, American policy on Cuba has been marked with a one-step-forward, two-steps-backward approach. Strategically, the ground is now open for Washington. Russia is now bogged down in the Ukraine war. China does not have much encouraging record of openly taking the field in support of an ally when the latter is in the midst of military confrontations. Analysts would remember: what role did it play during the 1971 Indo-Bangladesh war? Pakistan had banked on Chinese support. But Beijing had completely ditched Rawalpindi when the situation got really tough for the Pakistan army. So this time, too, Cuba should expect very little support from China and Russia.
Then why does Donald Trump speak about helping a "failed country" on humanitarian grounds?
Trump's US approval rating has plummeted over the Iran war, so he's reluctant to open another front in the Caribbean. According to an opinion poll by Reuters at the end of last month, the Iran war is weighing heavily on Trump's popularity as his approval rating in the US has nosedived to just 34 per cent. This is the lowest level he has scored for the second time in his second term. The earlier one happened in April. Only 23 per cent of Americans, including a great number of Republicans, think that the US is in any strong position, while 35 per cent think it is in a weaker position.
This situation may be the real reason behind Trump's hesitation, which has led him to invent "a "euphemism called "helping a failed country". True, the Cuban economy became wobbly long ago due to structural weaknesses. Revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro failed to realize that a sovereign country cannot be run for a long time on doles from other countries - in this case, the former Soviet Union and some other countries in the former Communist bloc. Sources of internal revenue generation Only two sources of internal revenue generation existed: sugar exports and tourism, which can never serve as solid props for any economy. - sugar exports and tourism, which can never Sugar exports and tourism cannot serve as solid props for any economy. After the 1959 revolution, foreign capital investments either faced nationalisation or left Cuba voluntarily. The Communist government in Havana failed to devise any worthwhile internal generation of capital.
Cuba's best course was to gradually transition towards democratic openings after revolutionary ideals and practices had firmly established themselves. However, the revolutionary Communist elites did not take this course of action. History teaches us that totalitarian state structures with one-party rule consistently make this mistake. This mistake happened in the Soviet Union. The Glasnost and Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev should have taken place long before. After Stalin's death Nikita Khrushchev tried to open up the Iron Curtain a bit. But it was a half-hearted attempt. Khrushchev did not disturb the one-party rule system in the Soviet Union. So when Gorbachev initiated his Glasnost and Perestroika, the Soviet political system could not cope with the concomitant chaos and disorder resulting from the breakup of the one-party system. To ensure its survival, the Cuban communist elite must immediately embrace democracy and multi-party elections.
For its survival, Cuba must jettison the authoritarian features embedded in its body politic. One is the GAESA, a military-run conglomerate which controls nearly 70 per cent of the Cuban economy. This is a typical sign of a dictatorial state. Why should a military involve itself in economic affairs? You can find parallels in the Pakistan Army and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). GAESA was established by Raul Castro when he was the president of Cuba from 2008 to 2018. It monopolised the use of crude oil the country received from friendly countries like Venezuela, Mexico and Russia, but between 2024 and 2025, it exported 60 per cent of this crude to several Asian countries for earning profit. The remaining 40 per cent was insufficient for the country. The result was a severe energy crisis.
This crisis: the sanctions that Trump has threatened to impose on countries supplying crude oil to Cuba have exacerbated this crisis. The sanctions that Trump has threatened to impose on countries supplying crude oil to Cuba have exacerbated this crisis. Cuba is facing a severe crisis, and Donald Trump is intensifying pressure on the Cuban government in Havana. Meanwhile, the Justice Department of the United States has held Raul Castro responsible for the downing of a US military jet in 1996, resulting in the deaths of its crews. Will it conduct another Venezuela-like operation in Havana to lift Raul Castro out of Cuba? However, it will be much more difficult as the Cuban army and Cuban intelligence are much more powerful than their counterparts in Venezuela.
So, there is another angle in US policy - putting threatening pressures on Cuba so that it opens up its economy for more and more private enterprise participation (read: US capital). Perhaps Havana is not totally opposed to it, as Raul Castro, after he became the president, had somewhat deviated from the path of his brother Fidel Castro and opened up the economy to some extent. This time talks have ensued, and in May last John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, visited Cuba and held talks with Raul Rodriguez Castro, grandson and bodyguard of Raul Castro, along with other Cuban officials. Last month Rodriguez Castro expressed that he is open to negotiating with US President Donald Trump.
So Cuba wants to negotiate. This is perhaps now the best course open to it, as its economy is tottering. Cuban foreign debt exceeds USD 46 billion. Remittances and incomes from the tourism sector have fallen sharply. Cuba is known for its high-quality medical services, and it earns much by exporting them. But in the post-pandemic period income from this sector is also falling.
What is really there in the minds of the US policymakers - an outright invasion of Cuba, a regime change under US dictates or just a total overhaul of the Cuban economy in favour of the private sector? The US is also a bit confused about its future action plan.
(The author is a senior journalist and commentator on current affairs.)