The debate over whether Cuba is a real priority for the Trump administration or merely a tool for electoral rhetoric was reignited among analysts Frank Rodríguez, Jorge de Armas, and Camilo Venegas, who openly disagreed about the scope and sincerity of Washington's policy toward the island.
The most skeptical tone came from Venegas, who was straightforward: "I believe that Donald Trump cares absolutely nothing about Cuba, that Cuba means nothing to Donald Trump—it's just a political discourse issue, and we'll see it again from now until November because he needs votes for Congress."
The analyst partially rescued Marco Rubio —"I'm going to save him," he said— as a figure with personal conviction, but dismissed the idea that the three Cuban-American Republican representatives have a genuine commitment to the cause.
His diagnosis of the current moment was equally grim: "I believe this is a calm in which the dictatorship is resting quietly."
Jorge de Armas offered a different, yet equally cautious perspective. He compared Trump's strategy towards Cuba to that applied to Iran: economic pressure aimed at wear down the regime for it to collapse from within, without direct military intervention.
"The Iranians used all this time while they were signing the truce and prolonging it to rearm, to organize, to reorganize, and to appoint new officials. And now Trump says that we are going to let them implode among themselves by putting economic pressure on them until they can no longer sustain it," he explained.
De Armas acknowledged that Rubio's statements had a detrimental impact on the exile community: "Definitely, Marco Rubio's comments were a cold shower that has filled people with pessimism."
Still, he slightly increased his odds of a regime change in Cuba through Trump—from 25% to 30%—after the Secretary of State's remarks in Panama, although he warned that Washington's attention has its limits.
"Since Iran is not finished, I understand that there isn't enough bandwidth to pay attention to taking down communism in Cuba at this time," he noted.
Frank Rodríguez, on the other hand, expressed a more optimistic outlook on the final outcome: "I believe we are in the calm before the storm, because the storm is inevitable. Change in Cuba is unavoidable and it was going to happen, it is going to happen."
The episode in Dominican Republic also sparked debate. On August 13, Dominican authorities ordered the departure of nine Cuban diplomats and their families — a total of about 21 people — invoking Article 9 of the Vienna Convention.
According to a report by Diario Libre, the expulsion was reportedly due to the detection of Cuban agents infiltrated in the XXV Central American and Caribbean Games to monitor athletes and prevent defections; at least five Cuban athletes left the delegation during the event.
The response of the Cuban ambassador did not go unnoticed. Rodríguez quoted it with irony: "The only words from the ambassador outside of Cuba will be that Cuba will never renounce the principle of proletarian internationalism, which I don't know what it has to do with this proletarian nationalism with some diplomats disguised as athletes chasing after Cubans."
As a backdrop, the announcement from Iberia that it will not resume direct flights to Havana before June 2027 —suspended since June 1, 2026, due to the energy crisis and fuel shortages— was interpreted by participants as a gauge of the widespread pessimism regarding an imminent change on the island.
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