Is the Trump administration preparing for a radical shift towards Cuba?

The military assault on Caracas and the capture of Nicolás Maduro have marked a turning point in the foreign policy of the United States towards Latin America.

Behind the surgical strike —carried out by Delta Force and personally endorsed by President Donald Trump— looms a question that circulates through diplomatic halls and intelligence circles: Is Cuba the next target?

The signs are not minor. In recent days, Washington's rhetoric has shifted from warning to a terminal diagnosis. Trump stated on Air Force One that "Cuba is ready to fall", a phrase that, beyond its tone, suggests that the White House sees the collapse of the regime as imminent.

His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has been warning for some time that the true adversary was not Caracas, but Havana.

In December, he was emphatic: “Cuba is the head of the monster. If the head is not cut off, the venomous snake will continue to cause harm in America.” For Rubio, the capture of Maduro is not just a blow to chavismo, but a surgical move to isolate and weaken the core of continental socialism.

This convergence between military action, doctrine, and political narrative could signal a profound shift in policy towards Cuba, one that moves away from "diplomatic pressure" and towards active deterrence, a term that dominates the new National Security Strategy approved in December.

In the new U.S. foreign policy document, Latin America is described as "the natural geopolitical space for the projection of the United States" in the face of the influence of Russia, China, and Iran.

The end of the Cuban "special regime"

For decades, Cuba was regarded as an anomaly: a rhetorical enemy, sanctioned but tolerated.

The fall of Maduro changes that equation. Caracas was the economic lung of Castroism, its source of oil and cash. Without that support, the regime in Havana faces a financial void that Trump himself described as "deadly."

The new Republican approach seems aimed at taking advantage of that collapse without resorting to an invasion, at least for now. "We don't think it is necessary to take action: it seems to be falling apart on its own," Trump said to reporters.

But the fact that he does not rule out military action —backed by Rubio and Senator Lindsey Graham, who described Cuba as "the head of the snake"— indicates that the option of force remains on the table as a means of pressure.

The death of 32 Cuban agents in Venezuela not only undermines years of denial by the Havana regime, but also provides Washington with concrete evidence of the militarization of the relationship between the two countries.

The official acknowledgment of that presence, even wrapped in heroic language, reconfigures the strategic map of the region: it transforms Cuba into an active security player within the Venezuelan conflict, rather than just a political ally.

In the corridors of power in Washington, the revelation reinforces the notion that the Caracas-Havana axis can no longer be treated as a diplomatic or ideological matter, but rather as a hemispheric problem of national security.

The public recognition of the Cuban military presence on Venezuelan soil also serves as a political trigger: it legitimizes the argument that the policy towards Cuba needs to be re-evaluated and intensified in light of its direct involvement in a regional war scenario.

The internal board and the "Rubio doctrine"

The figure of Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerges as the central architect of the hemispheric redesign.

His influence —amplified by his Cuban-American heritage and his vision of "democracy controlled by national security"— has transformed traditional rhetoric into a strategic framework that combines regime change, energy sanctions, and resource control.

Rubio had warned since December that "a transition in Venezuela would fatally weaken Cuba." And he was not mistaken: the Cuban economy, lacking Venezuelan oil and any financial leeway, is on the brink of collapse.

Washington knows it, and Graham's moral discourse, in denouncing that "Cuba has killed priests and nuns," could aim to legitimize any future action under the umbrella of humanitarianism and historical justice.

In this context, Rubio advocates what some Pentagon advisors in Washington ironically and accurately refer to as the "Donroe Doctrine": a reinterpretation of the old Monroe principle adapted to the Trump era, where "America for Americans" translates to "the hemisphere for the secure."

Its premise is simple: no state on the continent can be a refuge for regimes that sustain criminal networks or threaten American hegemony under the ideological cover of socialism.

This hybrid doctrine —part geostrategy, part moral crusade— turns regional security into the new language of freedom. And in that language, Cuba now holds the symbolic position that Iraq once had: the uncomfortable epicenter that no one in Washington rules out addressing when the time comes.

What would come next?

The scenarios under discussion within the administration suggest a managed transition in Cuba. Washington may attempt to replicate the Venezuelan model: an "acceptable" interim figure to negotiate with the U.S., followed by a supervised electoral process.

The problem, as analyst Michael Bustamante warned in The New York Times, is that "Cuba does not have a visible organic opposition; it is a one-party state to a degree that Venezuela never was."

Therefore, rather than a sudden change, a strategy of total political and economic strangulation may be looming, accompanied by increased support for civil society and the promotion of human rights and democracy.

All of this, combined with the end of Venezuelan oil, the tightening of the financial blockade, and the erosion of the revolutionary narrative, would push Havana towards an even greater crisis of legitimacy.

In 2026, the White House appears determined to close the chapter that began in 1959. And if the "fall of Cuba" occurs, as Trump predicts, it will not be due to a classic invasion, but rather a combination of economic suffocation, diplomatic isolation, and internal erosion.

What Washington calls "the head of the snake" may be closer to a blow than Havana imagines.