Cuba is not Venezuela, nor Iran, and Washington’s pressure campaign faces a harder Caribbean equation: fewer quick rewards, a tighter power structure, exile politics, migration risks, and a neighbor too close to treat casually from afar.
The Island Does Not Fit the Script
Cuba has a way of ruining easy geopolitical comparisons. From Washington, it can be tempting to place Havana beside Caracas and Tehran, as if the same pressure manual could be opened to the same page. But economists, former diplomats, and historians consulted by EFE argue that Cuba is a different case altogether, separated from Venezuela and Iran by resources, internal power, geography, opposition politics, and the weight of Cuban exile influence in the United States.
That matters because President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Havana is “next” carries more than rhetorical heat. It invites the old fantasy that Cuba is a small, close, symbolic target that can be pushed into dramatic change. Yet the island’s very closeness makes it harder, not easier, to manage. A crisis there would not remain comfortably offshore. It would sit at the edge of U.S. domestic politics, migration policy, military planning, and Caribbean stability.
Cuban economist Ricardo Torres told EFE that Cuba has “potential.” Still, he immediately added the harder truth: “The country has to be rebuilt completely.” The island has significant nickel and cobalt reserves. Still, it lacks the obvious, immediate oil wealth that shapes calculations around Venezuela and Iran. For a government seeking fast results with political spectacle, Cuba offers limited short-term economic payoff.
“A diferencia de esos dos países, Cuba es más una promesa de futuro que algo inmediato,” Torres told EFE. In his view, any economic effect, even in the medium term, would be reduced because “va a haber que invertir muchísimo.” That sentence should cool the imagination of anyone looking at Cuba as a prize to be seized. The island is not an oil field waiting to be rebranded. It is an exhausted country whose reconstruction would demand money, patience, and political risk.
Power Is Spread, Not Easily Split
The Venezuelan comparison also weakens when the structure of power is examined. Cuban academic Tamarys Bahamonde told EFE that in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro had concentrated many levers of power around his own person. In Cuba, influence is distributed among different organs and relevant figures. Those centers may have different interests at times, but they operate in a coordinated way.
That distinction is not cosmetic. A strategy of pressure often depends on finding fractures inside power, locating a negotiator, a rival faction, a substitute figure, or a possible transition channel. Bahamonde sees no sign that Cuba contains the level of fragmentation evident in Caracas. “La presión exterior es el mejor incentivo para que cierren filas,” she told EFE.
That is one of the old lessons of Latin American politics. Outside pressure can weaken a government, but it can also give that government a nationalist shield. The more the threat appears foreign, the easier it becomes for internal actors to close ranks, at least publicly. In Cuba, where sovereignty and resistance to U.S. pressure are not merely policies but foundational political myths, that effect may be especially strong.
Cuban historian Pável Alemán also expressed skepticism to EFE about applying the Venezuelan route to Cuba. “Aquí no les va a ser fácil encontrar a alguien con el que intenten negociar de espaldas de la sociedad cubana y lanzar un proyecto de sustitución de Gobierno,” he said. The warning is clear. A government replacement project arranged behind Cuban society’s back would not be simple to engineer, and perhaps not simple to legitimate.
The opposition landscape adds another complication. Former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray told EFE that Cuban dissidence, both on the island and in the diaspora, lacks figures or programs that generate a broad consensus, unlike the more articulated political and economic opposition in Venezuela. That does not mean Cuban discontent is absent. It means there is no obvious, unified political vehicle waiting to inherit a transition.
For Washington, this creates a practical problem. Pressure without a clear internal alternative can produce instability rather than change. It can punish a state without preparing a society. It can increase suffering while leaving the political structure intact. In Cuba’s case, that is not an abstract risk. It is a nearby risk.
Ninety Miles Make Everything Political
Geography is the part of the Cuba question that no strategy can wish away. Alzugaray told EFE that Cuba’s current economic situation does not benefit the United States because it could provoke a humanitarian crisis in a country only 90 miles away. Washington, he argued, cannot ignore it. If the Havana government falls, the result could be “chaos” and a possible wave of migration.
That is the paradox. For some hard-liners, collapse may sound like victory from a distance. But Cuba is not distant. A breakdown there would quickly become a Florida issue, a Caribbean issue, a military issue, and an electoral issue. It would test the very government that encouraged the pressure.
Torres adds another side to the calculation. Within Washington’s new strategic approach and its hegemonic bet in the Americas, Cuba plays a relevant role alongside Mexico, Panama, and Greenland. In that sense, Cuba is not simply a Cold War leftover. It is part of a wider struggle over influence in the hemisphere.
Alzugaray also points to defensive risk. Cuba is relatively close to U.S. territory, unlike Venezuela and Iran. “A 320 millas de Miami, inclusive de Mar-a-Lago,” he told EFE, referring to Trump’s personal residence. He added: “¿Quién sabe si La Habana tiene escondidos unos drones con los que atacar el territorio de EE.UU.? Es un riesgo que nadie puede correr.” He also warned of possible difficulties defending the U.S. base at Guantánamo.
Even if such scenarios remain speculative, their political meaning is grounded. Proximity changes risk. A pressure campaign against Cuba could not be treated as a remote exercise in coercion. It would unfold next to U.S. territory, amid exile politics, migration anxiety, and military exposure.
Then there is the Cuban lobby. Torres told EFE that the large number of Cubans in the United States with political power places Cuba in a different calculation from Venezuela and Iran. Those interests, forces, and pressures, he said, will shape Trump administration decisions in any scenario.
That means the Cuba policy is never only about Cuba. It is also about U.S. elections, exile memory, anticommunist identity, Florida politics, and presidential performance. Alzugaray believes the Cuban government is “entre la espada y la pared y va a tener que hacer algo.” Still, he also argues Washington urgently needs something with Cuba to show voters before the November midterm elections.
If Iran fails, Alzugaray told EFE, Trump may need some kind of success and might need an agreement with Cuba. The irony is almost Latin American in its sharpness. Washington may pressure Havana, but it may also need Havana to remain standing to negotiate. As Alzugaray observed, what interests the Cuban government is “su propia existencia.”
That is why Cuba cannot be reduced to Venezuela or Iran. It is poorer in immediate reward, closer in consequence, harder to split internally, and more deeply entangled with U.S. domestic politics. Treating it as “next” may sound strong. Understanding it as specific would be wiser.
Also Read:
Cuba Vote Shows Washington’s War Button Still Has Few Locks
