Politico reports:
The Trump administration is weighing new tactics to drive regime change in Cuba, including imposing a total blockade on oil imports to the Caribbean country, three people familiar with the plan said Thursday.
American built up a lot of force in the Caribbean for Venezuela, maybe they redirect it to Cuba, or maybe that was the plan all along.
Marco Rubio is said to be leading the push. His parents were born in Cuba but came to the US three years before the revolution. Other members of the family fled as refugees afterwards.
A blockade is a brutal escalation and an act of war that will surely create an international incident. That said, Cuba's economy is said to be badly struggling at the moment and it lost one of its few remaining allies in Venezuela. Last year, the US already started blockading Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba.
A separate report today from Reuters says Mexico is weighing halting oil exports to Cuba.
Despite the turmoil, there are few signs of organized resistance in Cuba and that might make any kind of US campaign much tougher than what happened in Venezuela. President Díaz-Canel did note in 2024 that "counter-revolutionaries from abroad" were fomenting protests in Cuba.
During the overthrow of Maduro, 32 Cuban guards were killed and both Díaz-Canel and 94--year-old Raul Castro attended a ceremony when their bodies were returned to Cuba.
The US has long coveted the island of 10 million inhabitants but many attempts to retake it or assassinate Fidel Castro failed. The most famous was the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion where all 1500 US-sponsored invaders were killed or captured. The US has had various economic embargoes on the island since 1960 with the goal of overthrowing the Communist government.
