Trump’s Big Bold Regime Change Plans

President Donald Trump

As the Trump administration escalates its campaign of threats and military posturing toward Venezuela, Cuba is calculating the potential costs – from more sanctions and fuel shortages to the possibility that its closest ally could even be invaded.

In recent months, Trump has ramped up troop numbers in the region to 10,000 and killed 21 people in strikes targeting several small boats. The administration claims the vessels were transporting drugs from Venezuela, although no evidence has been provided that they were in fact carrying narcotics. Meanwhile, the State Department has doubled a bounty on Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro to $50 million. The Trump administration has called him “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world" and accused him of running a drug cartel, a claim disputed by Mexico's president, among others.

Today, the New York Times reports that the Trump administration has authorized the CIA to conduct covert "lethal operations" in Venezuela and the Caribbean that could be unilateral or "in conjunction with a larger military operation."

All this has come on top of economic warfare on Venezuela – among other regime change efforts – that have been ongoing since Trump's first term.

This “maximum pressure” strategy also encompassed regime change efforts aimed at Cuba. The two countries, along with Nicaragua, were labeled “the Troika of Tyranny” by John Bolton in 2018 when he was Trump’s national security advisor. More recently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio referred to them as "enemies of humanity.”

During Trump’s first term, his administration blamed Cuba for “propping up” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Bolton accused Cuba of sending 20,000 to 25,000 security officials to Venezuela, a baseless claim that was used to justify efforts to overthrow the Cuban government.

There were indeed 20,000 Cubans in Venezuela. Most were doctors and nurses providing free healthcare. In exchange, Venezuela exported oil to Cuba at a discount.

The first Trump administration targeted this economic lifeline, imposing sanctions that cut the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba. Trump officials went so far as to push the CIA to covertly sabotage oil tankers — the CIA balked at the plan.
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​Watch Episode 2 of our award-winning documentary series The War on Cuba, in which we document the impact of these sanctions and take a close look at Cuba-Venezuela relations.

Ultimately, the “maximum pressure” strategy failed to bring about regime change in either Cuba or Venezuela. Some analysts speculated that in a second term, Trump, whose MAGA base was at odds with neoconservatives like Bolton, would try a different approach.

In the early months of the administration, Trump envoy Richard Grenell met with Maduro, negotiating the release of six U.S. detainees. Grenell's diplomacy appeared to contradict the hard-line game plan favored by Rubio, the self-proclaimed architect of Cuba policy during Trump’s first term.

But since then, Rubio seems to have won the battle for Trump’s ear as he and other top administration officials push for Maduro's ouster. On October 2, the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Rubio has overseen a ratcheting up of the U.S. government’s economic war on Cuba, which aims at stripping the country of its sources of foreign currency and isolating it from the rest of the world.

For now, though, the focus of Trump’s regime change efforts seems to be Venezuela.

A change in government in Venezuela would be a big blow for Cuba, which continues to rely on its main ally's political support and oil (although shipments have significantly declined in recent years).

To better understand Marco Rubio’s role in dictating U.S. regime change efforts aimed at Venezuela and Cuba, read the latest article by Lee Schlenker for Responsible Statecraft. 

Also, watch (in an interview with Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan) Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío explain how U.S. sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela have made it more difficult for Cuba to import vital fuel and spare parts.