The Trump administration is looking to achieve regime change in Cuba by the end of the year, according to US officials who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.
Officials familiar with the plans have apparently gained confidence that this outcome is possible for two reasons.
One, the US just launched a surgical attack on January 3 that led to the successful capture and ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, who had served as the country’s socialist leader since 2013.
Two, the administration now believes Cuba’s economy, which is deeply entangled with Venezuela’s, is very close to collapsing without Maduro in place to guarantee oil.
US intelligence analysts have said Cuba has frequent blackouts and chronic shortages of basic goods and medicines, according to people familiar with the assessments. Nearly 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Officials told The Journal that there is no concrete plan to overthrow the communist government in Cuba, which rose after Fidel Castro took over the country in 1959.
For now, the focus for the US is identifying members of the current members of the Cuban regime who are sympathetic to American interests and might want to cut a deal, The Journal reported.
This strategy would mirror how the operation to grab Maduro worked, since an asset within his inner circle flipped on him and helped the US. The military’s storming of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, killed 32 Cuban soldiers and around two dozen members of Maduro’s security force.
The Trump administration wants the Communist regime in Cuba gone by the end of the year, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. President Donald Trump has already hinted that Cuba should make a deal with the United States
US officials familiar with talks on this issue say that the successful capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has emboldened them
Citizens of Havana, Cuba, wave Venezuelan and Cuban flags during an ‘Anti-Imperialist’ protest in front of the US Embassy in the Communist country
The administration is also reportedly running an economic pressure campaign on Cuba, seeking to cut off vital oil imports from Venezuela that have been keeping the island running for decades. Economists expect Cuba to run out of oil within weeks.
Based on this, the US military’s continued seizing of oil tankers with Venezuelan-ties now appears to have another objective, besides punishing Venezuela for nationalizing its oil fields and seeking to oversee future sales of the commodity.
There is evidence of dissent on how to approach regime change in Cuba, according to The Journal.
Some US officials and Trump allies, some of them Florida-based Cuban exiles, want an aggressive approach to end the nearly 70 years of Communist rule.
Others within the administration have pointed out prior disastrous attempts to overthrow or weaken the Castro government, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the trade embargo. The embargo was instituted in 1962 and Cuba’s leaders have remained in place.
These same officials have also argued that Venezuela is much different from Cuba, even though they both have far-left governments.
Cuba is a single-party state that does not allow political opposition and has violently suppressed the only two major protests in the decades since the Communists took over: one in 1994 in Havana and another in 2021 across the entire island.
Meanwhile, Venezuela has had an active anti-Maduro faction for years. There have also been protests and elections, though international monitors virtually all agree that Maduro was able to rig the contests so he’d win no matter what.
Pictured: Two homeless men sit on a street in Havana on July 21, 2025
Pictured: A man eats his breakfast in his bedroom in Havana on March 27, 2024
Raúl Castro (center) is now 94 years old and has ceded power of the Cuban regime over to Miguel Díaz-Canel (right)
Díaz-Canel (pictured addressed the United Nations in 2023) has not indicated he is open to a deal with the US
Because Venezuela has the makings of an opposition movement, some Trump officials say replicating what was done there could be difficult in Cuba, where citizens are extraordinarily repressed.
Given how dicey a regime change operation could be in Cuba – with the potential to lead to a humanitarian crisis – Trump believes that ending the long reign of the Castros would cement his foreign policy legacy, according to a US official who worked for Trump on Cuba policy in his first term.
It would give Trump a leg up on President John F. Kennedy, who did not succeed in rooting out Fidel Castro.
The Trump administration is getting more open about its desire to see a conclusion to the regime in Cuba.
Jeremy Lewin, the State Department’s acting undersecretary for foreign assistance, said last week that Cuba ‘has to make a choice to step down or to better provide for its people’.
And on January 11, President Donald Trump publicly warned the Cuban regime that after Maduro’s capture, no more Venezuelan oil or money would be arriving.
‘I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,’ he wrote in the Truth Social post.
There is no indication that Cuba is cowing to the US. The government is still highly influenced by 94-year-old Raúl Castro, who retired as president in 2021 and handed over day-to-day responsibilities to Miguel Díaz-Canel, 65.
‘There is no surrender or capitulation possible nor any kind of understanding based on coercion or intimidation,’ Díaz-Canel said at a recent memorial for the Cuban security guards who were killed while trying to protect Maduro.
