John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump, warned this Wednesday that the U.S. administration is about to make the same mistake with Cuba that it made with Venezuela: accepting superficial gestures from the regime without demanding real structural change.
"Trump seems unable to recognize that Venezuela has not genuinely experienced a regime change. He will make the same mistake in Cuba if he continues his approach with Maduro. Havana will be more than willing to appease Trump in the short term to obtain any assistance or support it can from Washington," Bolton said on his profile on X.
U.S. officials have confirmed that negotiations with Cuba are ongoing at the highest level, although sources close to the process indicate that they are in a very preliminary phase and without formal structure.
Bolton draws a direct parallel with the Venezuelan case. The capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026 was presented as a triumph of Trump's foreign policy, but the analyst argues that the Venezuelan outcome would have been negotiated with the Trump administration since the fall, without implying a real transformation of the power system.
Bolton had previously questioned the logic of economic openness towards the island, arguing that there is no private sector that buys oil in Cuba, which would make any commercial exchange scheme that does not directly benefit the Cuban state unviable.
Trump had declared that "we will reach an agreement very soon or we will do whatever it takes regarding Cuba," while from Havana, Miguel Díaz-Canel responded with warnings about a war of the entire people in the face of any possible aggression.
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