The administration of Donald Trump is attempting to identify individuals within the Cuban government who would be willing to help broker a deal with Washington and contribute to the removal of the current regime by the end of 2026. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing sources.
According to one of the newspaper’s interlocutors, during meetings with Cuban exiles and civil society organizations in Miami and Washington, representatives of the Trump administration have focused on finding, within Cuba’s current leadership, “someone who understands where things are headed and is willing to make a deal.” The source claims that it was precisely with the help of such an internal agent that an earlier operation against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was carried out, an operation that, as the WSJ notes, “encouraged” Trump’s team.
Sources cited by The Wall Street Journal say that within the U.S. president’s inner circle, Cuba’s economy is viewed as being close to collapse. According to American officials’ assessments, the Cuban government “has never been as fragile” as it is now, following the loss of Venezuelan oil supplies that for many years formed the backbone of the island’s economy. In Washington, the WSJ reports, there are plans to further weaken the regime by cutting off these supplies.
At the same time, the Trump administration reportedly has no concrete plan to eliminate the Cuban government, the sources say. However, the operation against Maduro is, in their view, seen as a kind of “warning” to the authorities in Havana.
In a statement, the U.S. State Department said that, in the interests of America’s national security, Cuba needs to be “governed by a competent democratic government and to stop hosting military and intelligence structures of U.S. adversaries on its territory.”
