With the murder indictment of Cuban leader Raúl Castro , President Trump is applying the playbook he used to upend Venezuela’s leadership to force Havana’s Communist government into submission.
Trump has pointed to Venezuela as a model for wielding power in America’s backyard after the U.S. military blasted through the defenses around its leader Nicolás Maduro and arrested him on drug-trafficking charges. Maduro’s successor, his Vice President Delcy Rodriguez , has delivered on U.S. demands, a scenario Trump has implied could be replicated in Cuba.
“The indictment and removal of Maduro sent a clear message to his socialist allies in Havana: this is our Hemisphere and those that destabilize it and threaten the United States will face consequences,” Trump said in a message released for Cuban Independence Day on Wednesday.
Trump officials have cited Maduro’s capture as a blueprint for Cuban regime change. On a visit to Havana last week, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe mentioned Maduro’s case as a warning that Trump’s demands to open the economy and its closed political system should be taken seriously, a CIA official said.
U.S. officials have been searching for Cuban government insiders in the hope they can cut a deal to help push out the Castro-led government, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Trump administration officials have referred to the search for a “Cuban Delcy,” praising the Venezuelan interim leader for her close cooperation.
“What President Trump is doing is just sending a very clear message to Raúl: Look at Maduro,” said Rep. María Elvira Salazar , a Florida Republican. “If you do not want to wind up where he’s at, then go. It happened in Venezuela. I do believe that is going to happen in Cuba.”
Forcing the Castro-led government from power would represent the achievement of a cherished goal of many Cuban-Americans and mark the culmination of almost seven decades of hostility between the U.S. and the Communist island 90 miles south of Florida.
But many observers say that Venezuela isn’t Cuba, and what the U.S. calls success in Caracas may be a lot harder to replicate in Havana.
“I don’t think they will find a Cuban Delcy in Havana,” said Jorge Castañeda , a former Mexican foreign minister who wrote a book about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine guerrilla who helped the Castro brothers overthrow the U.S.-backed government in 1959.
Current and former U.S. officials say the Trump administration isn’t expected to use force to bring the 94-year-old Castro to the U.S. to stand trial, as it did with Maduro. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Wednesday that he would “not compare cases.”
Castañeda said Raúl Castro is unlikely to surrender to the U.S. “He would shoot himself instead,” Castañeda said.
The Cuban government condemned what it called the “despicable” charge against Castro. “This spurious accusation against the Leader of the Cuban Revolution adds to the desperate attempts by anti-Cuban elements to construct a fraudulent narrative,” it said in a statement.
The Trump administration expects major changes to the Cuban government by the end of 2026, the Journal has reported.
An oil embargo imposed on Cuba by the U.S. has dealt a crushing blow to Cuba’s economy. Its worsening fuel shortages are likely to imperil its security apparatus and the operational capability of its armed forces.
Even if the dominoes don’t fall in Havana as they did in Caracas, the Castro indictment heaps more pressure on a government that is failing to provide the most basic services and goods, from electricity to food staples. The island is inching closer to a humanitarian crisis, and its insolvent government faces a dead end.
Cuba has few allies and none that could come to its aid if the U.S. took military action or implemented more economic measures to force the government out. With Maduro gone, Venezuela, once a friend to Cuba, no longer supplies subsidized oil. Russia and China are engaged elsewhere.
Still, significant differences between Venezuela and Cuba cloud Trump’s plan.
Maduro has been credibly accused of rigging elections, but the country has an active opposition movement, a strong private sector and is rich in oil and minerals. The Maduro government was long dubbed a kleptocracy with dueling factions, one of which betrayed—and replaced—Maduro.
Cuba has been a totalitarian state for 67 years whose government brooks no organized political opposition and barely tolerates the shadow of a civil society. Its main pillars are the Interior Ministry, the armed forces and the Communist Party, which are highly united. So far, there are no visible cracks that would produce someone like Venezuela’s Rodríguez, who could be anointed by the U.S.
The U.S. indictment of Castro, who holds no formal title in the government from which he retired as president in 2018, is meant to increase Trump’s leverage with Havana. But it risks hardening the resistance of the communist regime, said close observers of the Caribbean island.
“It probably would stiffen their spine,” said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst who wrote a biography of Castro and his older brother Fidel Castro. “It’s his military. He created it, and is the only four-star general in the country.”
Cuba’s effective security apparatus has quashed almost all opposition. The government has been adept at administrating repression and poverty. It has long had a tight grip on all levels of society, from workplaces to schools and concert halls.
Cuba has some 1,200 political prisoners, but its security forces rarely resort to extreme violence, as did Maduro’s government which was accused by human-rights organizations of killing hundreds of protesters and opponents.
Cuba’s regime has been able to dissuade most dissidents by stationing security agents in front of their homes, bringing them to police stations for periodic interrogations or forcing them to choose between prison and exile.
Many protesters who participated in the 2021 demonstrations that shook the island were sentenced to 10-year prison terms, but close to 200 people, convicted of sedition, received sentences of as much as 30 years, most of which were later reduced.
“If the intent is to create fissures as existed in Venezuela, that is unlikely in Cuba,” said Ricardo Zúñiga , a former U.S. official who helped negotiate the short-lived rapprochement between the two countries during the Obama administration.
“This will give them less reason to negotiate, not more,” Zúñiga said. “If there is no future that includes a path for them right now, their better option is to hunker down.”
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Santiago Pérez at santiago.perez@wsj.com
