As the Trump administration’s coup in Venezuela causes instability in Cuba, lawmakers question what the next steps are for the decades-long communist dictatorship in the Caribbean.
Cuba has heavily relied on resources from Venezuela for decades, but after the U.S. staged a military intervention that ousted dictator Nicolas Maduro and began an oil blockade around Cuba in January, the Trump administration could apply enough pressure to catalyze the fall of the country’s regime.
The island nation just south of Florida has faced worsening food and water shortages, nationwide blackouts and inflation and was the subject of a House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee hearing Thursday.
“With Maduro’s arrest, Cuba lost one of its last benefactors,” said Michael Kozak, the senior official of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the hearing. “President Trump has made clear that we will not tolerate this threat on our doorstep any longer. Now is the time for drastic political and economic reforms in Cuba.”
President Donald Trump acknowledged the volatility within the country on Friday at a Turning Point USA Rally in Phoenix, Arizona.
“It’s called a new dawn for Cuba,” the president said. “Watch what happens.”
Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Salazar, R-Fla., whose district includes parts of Miami, the city with the highest concentration of Cubans and Cuban Americans in the country, said the Trump administration’s pressure on Cuba has spread hope.
“Thank God that Cuba is next,” Salazar said. “Cuba has always been the epicenter of evil in the Western Hemisphere, unfortunately. They wrote the manual on repression, but now … the Cuban people are full of hope.”
The committee gave bipartisan support for a push toward democracy in the country, but disagreed on what level of intervention should happen.
“I want to see things in Cuba change,” said Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, the top Democrat on the subcommittee. “We want to see free and fair elections, but I don’t believe we should overthrow the government.”
Castro said he believes the president will use a coup in Cuba for his own political gain.
“I have no illusions about the nature of Cuba’s government,” he said. “But, I do want to say for the record that I suspect after the war in Iran and the embarrassment that the president has suffered, that the president of the United States will likely try to overthrow the Cuban government for what he would consider a quick win.”
He added that he fears the U.S. could use the same model used to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela in Cuba for the financial benefit.
“Everybody except Maduro is still in place,” Castro said. “So, it’s making me think that the goal in Cuba is going to be the same. Who’s going to go over there who’s friends with the president to make money? And who’s going to profit off of Cuba and the Cuban people?”
Salazar was supportive of U.S. intervention but not using the same tactics in Venezuela, placing an insider of the regime into power as the U.S. waits to hold elections.
“We’re not going to do any business with the Castros,” Salazar said. “They need to go, and then we need to start all over again.”
Kozak confirmed the U.S. is in direct talks with the Cuban government.
“I think the goal in Cuba is … to get to a point where the Cuban people can select their own leadership through a free and fair election,” Kozak said.
He said the State Department’s goal is for Cuba to begin the shift to democracy itself and denied plans to use a Venezuelan model in the country.
“They need to make fundamental economic, political, social reforms,” Kozak said. “They need to start somewhere. I think the president has been very clear that if they start down that path, they can get some help from us.”