Florida International University (FIU) will host a panel discussion this Friday on potential transition scenarios in Cuba, at a time when pressure from Washington on Havana has reached unprecedented levels in decades.
The event, organized by the Institute of Cuban Studies and the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, will take place on August 28 at 7:00 PM at the Modesto A. Maidique campus in Miami, in room 102 of the SIPA II building.
The debate will revolve around three main avenues: negotiation, regime collapse, and military intervention. The official announcement describes the Cuban regime as being "on the brink of an inevitable change" due to the combination of economic collapse, loss of political legitimacy, and the tightening of U.S. sanctions.
Three panelists with complementary profiles will lead the discussion. Carolina Barrero, founder and executive director of Ciudadanía y Libertad, arrived in Miami in mid-August to begin a doctorate in literary studies at the University of Miami.
Activist and art historian, she has stated that the fall of the dictatorship does not automatically guarantee a consolidated democracy and that civil society must have a place in any negotiations regarding the future of the island.
Armando Chaguaceda Noriega, a political scientist and historian born in Havana in 1975 and residing in Mexico since 2008, is a researcher at Government and Political Analysis AC (GAPAC) and holds a doctorate in History and Regional Studies.
Author of more than 30 academic articles, he specializes in processes of autocratization in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and defines the Cuban regime as a "party dictatorship." His analyses of the Cuban situation have gained significance in the academic debate.
Brian Fonseca, Vice President for Research in Defense and National Security at FIU and director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute, will provide insights on national security.
In June, he published along with Liany Díaz González the analysis «Cuba's Crisis: Four Near-Term Scenarios», where he identified four specific pathways: humanitarian intervention, limited coercive action, internal regime fracture, and negotiated concessions.
In that document, it warned that the judicial processing of Raúl Castro and five co-defendants "establishes a judicial framework that could be used to justify coercive measures, similar to what preceded the capture of Nicolás Maduro."
The panel will be moderated by Sebastián Arcos, director of the Cuban Studies Institute at FIU, former Cuban political prisoner, and veteran human rights activist who joined the university in 1995.
The event occurs in a context of maximum pressure from the Trump administration on Havana. Between January and August 2026, Washington has imposed more than 250 new sanctions against Cuba, focusing on energy, finance, and the military conglomerate GAESA.
On May 1, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14404 which expanded those measures and introduced secondary sanctions against third parties operating with sanctioned Cuban entities.
It is not the first time that FIU has led this debate. In February, it organized the conference “Cuba: The Day After Tomorrow,” where analysts presented five transition scenarios and estimated that the immediate stabilization of the island would cost between 180 and 270 million dollars in the first 180 days, and the total recovery could reach between 275 and 375 billion dollars over a period of 10 to 15 years.
The event is free and open to the public. Those wishing to confirm their in-person attendance can write to ics@fiu.edu or call (305) 348-1991.
Fonseca summed up the moment accurately: «Cuba is at a decisive crossroads. The convergence of economic deterioration, rising social discontent, intensified pressure from the U.S., and increasing international scrutiny has created a new array of possible outcomes».
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