Is Cuba Next? Inside Washington’s Push for Regime Change

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Luke Vargas (0:33)

Hey What's News listeners, it's Sunday, February 1st. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal and this is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. On today's show, after toppling Venezuela's leader, the Trump administration is now seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year.

Today, we'll be looking at the dire economic situation Washington believes could drive the island to the breaking point, and what else is fueling the thinking in Washington that now is the right time to dislodge a communist government that has weathered decades of external pressure. Let's get right to it. Joining me today as we set our sights on Cuba are a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters fixated on America's power projection abroad. On the line from Mexico City is José de Córdoba, and with us from Washington, DC is Vera Bergengruen. José, let me start with you. We have all seen the footage of mid-century cars rolling down the beachfront in Havana. Probably an overused visual when it comes to understanding the economic situation in particular in modern Cuba, though maybe not totally unhelpful. What should we be focusing on when it comes to the island? Paint us a scene of what has been unfolding there.

José de Córdoba (1:51)

Well, Cuba is in its worst economic crisis probably since it became an independent republic in 1902 Blackouts last in the provinces for 20 hours at a time. On top of that, you have huge scarcity of medicines, all kinds of goods and food. People have access to food only if they have access to dollars, which are sent from family members abroad. Also, it's been hit by these mosquito borne illnesses that have affected a lot of the population.

Luke Vargas (2:26)

All right, Jose, things are already bad and maybe getting worse. And this is where we can connect the situation in Cuba to what has recently gone on in Venezuela.

José de Córdoba (2:35)

Things are getting bad and are likely to get much worse very quickly. The reason for that is that Cuba uses roughly 100,000 barrels of oil per day. It pumps about 40,000 barrels of oil a day, which goes directly into its power energy sector into its energy plants. So that leaves a deficit of roughly 60,000 barrels per day. Venezuela has been providing about 35,000 barrels per day. So it's been making up about half of the deficit that Cuba has.

Now, since the US captured Maduro, no Venezuelan oil has been getting to Cuba. So there's much less electricity to go around. There's much less gasoline. There's much less fuel to go around. So the island could basically hit a wall in what experts think will be four weeks to eight weeks, depending on how much fuel Cuba has stored, which is not known.

Luke Vargas (3:37)

And Vera, you report that the economic vulnerability that José has been describing there is very much feeding into Washington's calculus here, thinking that maybe it can try to pick off Cuba's government now.

Vera Bergengruen (3:47)

That's right. I mean, everything that José has been laying out has been feeding into CIA and other US intelligence assessments that the intelligence community puts together and briefs to President Trump, to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And they have been looking at all of this. But now what they're assessing as well is that not only is the economy close to collapse, but the government itself has never been this fragile. And so they really are trying to think of what else they could do since they have this goal as we reported of trying to force out this regime by the end of the year. And on top of that, Cuba has this longstanding program where it has overseas medical missions where they send doctors to work abroad and a lot of that money comes back. One of its most important sources of hard currency. And since the Trump administration came back into the White House, we've seen Rubio and some other officials really put pressure on that as well on some Caribbean islands and others who hire these doctors. So they're really kind of looking at the whole picture and trying to see what other valves they can squeeze shut in order to really put the full weight of the US pressure on this government right now.