{"id":203265,"date":"2026-03-07T20:22:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/cubastroika-inside-trump-plan-to-save-cubas-economy-and-win-control-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T20:22:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:22:43","slug":"cubastroika-inside-trump-plan-to-save-cubas-economy-and-win-control-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/cubastroika-inside-trump-plan-to-save-cubas-economy-and-win-control-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubastroika: Inside Trump plan to save Cuba's economy and win control – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aldo A\u0301lvarez\u2019s vans sat idle for three weeks, baking in the Cuban sun.\u00a0
There was no fuel to be found in the capital for his delivery company\u2019s fleet of 10 trucks and vans.\u00a0
Power outages ran 15 hours a day. Airlines canceled flights due to inability to refuel. Hotels were shuttered. Classes canceled. Tourism dried up.
After the dramatic capture of Nicola\u0301s Maduro<\/a> in Venezuela by U.S. special forces on Jan. 3., President Donald Trump shut off the flow of oil to Cuba<\/a>. An island of 10 million people plunged into darkness.\u00a0
Cuba appeared to be the Trump administration\u2019s next target for regime change \u2013 one that would realize the dreams of Cuban exiles and many Republicans for a U.S.-backed blow<\/a> that would end the enduring communist regime.\u00a0
But the administration\u2019s aim for the island nation seems to be a more subtle one, despite calls from the White House for Cuba to \u201cmake very dramatic changes very soon.\u201d\u00a0
Trump, in lockstep with his Secretary of State and longtime Cuba hawk, Marco Rubio, is rolling out moves designed to make Cuba dependent on the U.S. economy \u2013 a striking about-face from decades of U.S. policy toward Cuba.\u00a0
On Feb. 25, the Trump administration began allowing U.S. petroleum products<\/a>, such as diesel, to be sold directly to Cuba\u2019s private sector, circumventing the longstanding 1960 U.S. embargo.
And hoping business owners like A\u0301lvarez can play a key role.\u00a0
A\u0301lvarez was buoyed recently with news that U.S. companies would be exporting diesel directly to Cuba\u2019s small businesses \u2013 something that hadn\u2019t been done in more than six decades. Fuel reached the nearby gas station.
The vans revved back up.
\u201cIt\u2019s transformative,\u201d A\u0301lvarez,\u00a0 founder of Mercatoria, told USA TODAY from Havana. \u201cI can guarantee my [fuel] supply in a stable way \u2026 Without a doubt, it\u2019s good news.\u201d
Though Trump hasn\u2019t hesitated to use military force in places like Venezuela and Iran, bringing change to Cuba\u2019s repressive regime may be more akin to a slow, steady economic dependence on U.S. products \u2013 a Caribbean-style perestroika<\/em>, or the gradual granting of market-like reforms that led to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Trump administration officials, including Rubio and others, have been negotiating with Cuban representatives and feel change to the communist island is imminent, Trump said at the “Shield of the Americas” Summit near Miami on March 7.
“As we achieved a historic transformation in Venezuela, we\u2019re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said. “Cuba is in it\u2019s last moment of life as it was.”
Washington’s shift in approach — from isolating Cuba to empowering its private sector — is huge, said Ric Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a Washington-based non-profit policy and advocacy group.\u00a0
\u201cYou have the Trump administration recognizing the Cuban private sector as both a real sector and also a key strategic partner on the ground to help relieve the humanitarian crisis,” he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen that before.”
Speculation on U.S. intervention in Cuba flared after recent reports that Rubio and his aides had back-channel talks with the grandson of Cuba\u2019s aging dictator, Raul Castro.
Trump confirmed on Feb. 27 Rubio was talking with Cuban officials \u201cat a very high level\u201d and warned that Cuba is a weakened state<\/a>. \u201cMaybe we’ll have a friendly takeover of Cuba,” he mused to reporters.\u00a0
On March 6, the president reiterated his focus on Cuba, telling CNN the communist island “is gonna fall pretty soon.” Federal prosecutors are also looking into potentially charging members of Cuba’s regime or communist party with crimes, as they did with Maduro before his ouster, according to NBC News.
Trump and Rubio will confer with like-minded Latin American leaders from countries such as Argentina and El Salvador at a March 7 summit at the president’s Doral golf club, where Cuba is expected to be part of the discussion.
Then, the high-seas shootout.
The murky gunfight last week<\/a> between a boat full of Cuban-Americans and the Cuban coast guard near Cuba\u2019s northern coast last week ended in the killing of four people on the boat \u2013 including at least one U.S. citizen \u2013 and the injury and capture of six others. The incident made headlines and hatched online conspiracies as to the gunmen\u2019s motives but is not expected to alter U.S. strategy toward Cuba.
It\u2019s unclear how U.S. officials plan to use direct economic contact with Cuba\u2019s private sector as a means to foment change. At a Feb. 25 summit at St. Kitts and Nevis, Rubio reiterated that U.S. officials are not expecting abrupt change in Cuba.
\u201cThe status quo is unacceptable \u2026 Cuba needs to change,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to change all at once. It doesn\u2019t have to change from one day to the next \u2026 But Cuba needs to change. It needs to change dramatically.\u201d
Eric Jacobstein, former deputy assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs in the Biden administration, traveled to the island repeatedly to meet with Cuban entrepreneurs and encourage them to connect with U.S. businesses.\u00a0
For Trump\u2019s strategy to take root, Cuba\u2019s private sector will need increased help from American businesses, particularly the banking sector, he said.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cIt’s critical to engage this independent Cuban private sector,\u201d Jacobstein said. \u201cThey’re independent, they’re entrepreneurial \u2026 It’s a group that has embraced capitalism within a failing communist system.\u201d\u00a0
Ever since Fidel Castro stormed Havana with his battalion of barbudos<\/em> in 1959 and later announced the country\u2019s allegiance to communism, American presidents have sought to coerce, constrain and even kill Cuban leadership. A U.S. embargo placed in 1960 barred most U.S. companies from doing business in Cuba.
Starting in 2014, former President Barack Obama launched attempts at normalizing relations with Cuba<\/a>, encouraging U.S-Cuban business ventures and even re-opening the U.S. embassy in Havana<\/a>. In a historic visit to Cuba \u2013 the first for a sitting U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge 90 years earlier \u2013 Obama met with activists and entrepreneurs, bolstering the island\u2019s fledgling private sector.
But those efforts were mostly superficial because they were not conditioned on anything, said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a trade group that has been dealing with Cuba since 1994.
A few U.S. businesses sought ventures on the island under Obama and cruise ships and airlines began ferrying travelers there. But the Cuban government mostly refused to reform the island\u2019s stagnant economic system or allow direct foreign investment, he said.\u00a0\u00a0
Trump\u2019s strategy is different in that it includes coercion and comes at a time when Cuba is struggling to survive, Kavulich said.
\u201cThe Cuban government does not have the elasticity to be able to play games as they did with President Obama,\u201d he said.
A key question is how the Cuban exile community in Miami and elsewhere will react to the U.S. having such direct contact with officials and entrepreneurs on the island \u2013 something they\u2019ve strongly opposed for years, said Michael Bustamante of the Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
The recent interaction between Rubio, who as a U.S. senator strongly criticized Obama\u2019s overtures to Cuba, and Raul Castro\u2019s grandson was a jarring turn of events, he said.
\u201cI think it\u2019s a surprise to many folks,\u201d Bustamante said. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a surprise to him.\u201d
As the U.S. Cuba strategy emerged, Kavulich said his council was contacted by members of the Trump administration, asking if any executives would be willing to publicly support the president\u2019s strategy of dealing directly with Cuba\u2019s private sector. They suggested forming a \u201cCEO Council for Free and Democratic Cuba,\u201d or something akin.
Kavulich polled members and non-members. None would agree.
\u201cEveryone’s deathly afraid that the administration will be supportive in the morning and by lunchtime will be criticizing them,\u201d Kavulich said. \u201cSo, they’re just taking a \u2018wait-and-see\u2019 attitude.\u201d
He said the strategy emerging from the White House is less perestroika<\/em> and more bankruptcy filing.
\u201cThey’re not liquidating, they’re reorganizing,\u201d Kavulich said of the Cuban government. \u201cWe’re going to continue to see a government version of Chapter 11 reorganization.\u201d
Cuban officials \u2013 their main supply of oil pinched off, images of a cuffed and blindfolded Maduro inside a U.S. assault ship just a few weeks old \u2013 so far seem to be paying attention.
At a meeting of high-ranking officials in Havana this week, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel stressed the importance of \u201cimplementing the most urgent and necessary transformations to the economic and social model,\u201d according to Granma, Cuba\u2019s communist party newspaper \u2013 a stark reversal from a communist island historically averse to economic reform.
He added that the initiatives “are fundamentally related to business autonomy; municipal autonomy \u2026 leveraging economic partnerships between the state and private sectors, especially at the municipal level; and promoting business with Cubans residing abroad.”
Cuban officials like Diaz-Canel have promised reform before without delivering, but this time Trump\u2019s bellicose coercion and the growing crisis on the island could force them to actually act, Kavulich said.
There are an estimated 11,000 small- to medium-sized independent businesses in Cuba, many of them centered around Havana, from restaurants in homes known as paladares<\/em> to online delivery services.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cIt was easy to see President Trump<\/a> was not going to focus on removing communism from Cuba as much as he was going to focus on commercial, economic, financial engagement first,\u201d Kavulich said. \u201cI don’t think anyone should be surprised if we eventually see [special U.S. envoy] Steve Witkoff and [Trump advisor] Jared Kushner in Havana negotiating with the Cuban government.\u201d
Robert Muse, a Washington attorney who specializes in helping U.S. businesses in Cuba, said most business leaders are still cautiously watching events unfold.\u00a0\u00a0
For years, many waited for Cuba to evolve into a Vietnam or China \u2013 a country that retained its communist ideology but opened its economy to allow trade and foreign investment, he said. But that never happened, despite pressure from China and Russia, two of Cuba\u2019s biggest benefactors.
Now, most vestiges from the 1959 Cuban revolution are fading or dead. Fidel Castro died in 2016 and his brother, Raul Castro, the island\u2019s de facto dictator, and Ramiro Valde\u0301s, former vice-prime minister and close confidant of the Castros, are both in their 90s.
That, along with a suffering population and the oil embargo, creates an ideal opportunity for the Trump administration to spark meaningful change on the island, Muse said. Doing it through the private sector was a wise move, he said.
\u201cThere’s a slowly emerging consciousness that this is the year of decision\u201d in Cuba, Muse said. \u201cThis is elemental economic reform in Cuba.\u201d
A\u0301lvarez, the Havana-based entrepreneur, said he recognizes the weight of the moment and the rarity of receiving U.S. fuel directly from U.S. companies.
He said the situation in Cuba has been dire, with many companies dormant due to the oil crisis and people struggling to get by.
But he feels Cuba is entering a period of reform \u2013 and business owners such as himself are at the forefront.
\u201cThey\u2019ve given us a huge responsibility,\u201d A\u0301lvarez said. \u201cAnd the private sector will meet that responsibility.\u201d
Follow Jervis on X: @MrRJervis.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Aldo A\u0301lvarez\u2019s vans sat idle for three weeks, baking in the Cuban sun.\u00a0There was no fuel to be found in the capital for his delivery company\u2019s fleet of 10 trucks and vans.\u00a0Power outages ran 15 hours a day. Airlines canceled flights due to inability to refuel. Hotels were shuttered. Classes canceled. Tourism dried up.After the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}