Trump admin reportedly preparing for Cuban government collapse

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]a live look where it's about 8:20 in the nation's capital. We have so much to discuss, so many headlines coming out of the White House. Axios with this saying that the Trump administration is bracing for the potential collapse of Cuba's government as early as this summer.

[00:00:18]We've been tracking Cuba as the US continues its pressure campaign on the island, including an oil blockade and sanctions. These measures have taken a toll on the country and its residents and Axios says that the US has wargamed new military response plans just in case the island descends into chaos. Axios's Mark Caputo is here. He is writing about all of this. Mark, what is the White House watching to tell if a Cuban government collapse is in fact coming?

[00:00:50]Well, they're watching just whether they can feed people, whether they can keep the lights on, and whether people take to the streets, and then what the Cuban government does in response. In July of 2022, July 11th, there were protests in Cuba against the regime. People wanted more freedom. They wanted the economy to improve. They were brutally repressed.

[00:01:11]Now, one of the things that the US military southcom in this tabletop exercise and inter agency one war gamed was what happens if people take to the streets and there's another round of repression. There could in that case be a military response. Now to be very clear, Donald Trump, we are told President Trump does not have any imminent plans to launch any sort of invasion or military action. But they did examine the different scenarios by which the US military could become involved and that's one of them, you know, to sort of use a a line or repurpose a line from Game of Thrones.

[00:01:45]Summer is coming. Things are going to get very hot very soon in the Caribbean if they're not very hot already. Cuba doesn't have electricity. People don't have fans that can run. Certainly not air conditioning and refrigeration. Food can spoil in those situations. People can be hungry. They can get very angry, very hot, and it can be quite a powder keg that could start to erupt over there or blow up.

[00:02:06]>> So when the US took Nicholas Maduro into custody, Deli Rodriguez was the figure that stepped in and ran the government and ran a more cooperative Venezuelan government, a more cooperative government with the United States. Um, who might be the Deli Rodriguez equivalent in Cuba? Is there one?

[00:02:26]>> There isn't one. One of the names that you hear most frequently is Raleito Castro who is the grandson of Raul Castro, the aging deacto dictator. But the difference between Cuba and Venezuela is in Venezuela, Maduro had a very vertical power structure where power was sort of acrewing to him. And when the United States was beginning its operation in Venezuela, they were talking to Deli Rodriguez and for lack of a better term cultivating her. And at a certain point they realized that she would be able to lead the nation and able to step in. And if they essentially decapitated it by taking Maduro, they could install her and change things. In Cuba, it's just not that way. It is a much more diffuse power structure. They the president has not identified the possible delis or deli as someone called them the deli lights or the deli-ish personalities. And as a result, Trump isn't quite sure what to do yet. And even if they did go in and seize Raul Castro, it would not change the scenario on the island the same way that the taking of Maduro did in Venezuela.

[00:03:31]>> So you're reporting and again for people that want to read it, you can go to Axios's website. Uh the report says that the US has war gamed plans in case that the in case the island descends into chaos. We don't expect the US to broadcast its military plans obviously, but do we have an idea of what kind of military footprint those operations might have for the ordinary Cubans that are on the ground there?

[00:03:55]>> I don't uh I'm not a military expert and I would defer to them. What I can say is that Havana, Cuba is 90 miles away from Key West and Key West was founded in the 1820s established by the United States in order to control the Strait of Florida, the Straits of Florida, opposite of Anna. It is a strategic location. There are military assets at Naval Air Station Key West, slightly to the north of the island, and an F-16 can take about 8 to 10 minutes to fly there.

[00:04:22]In addition, the USS Nimitz and the carrier strike group is there in the Caribbean. that was advertised by the United States on Cuban Independence Day, the same day that the indictment of Raul Castro for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootown was announced, May 20th.

[00:04:38]So, there are a number of possibilities that the United States could execute.

[00:04:42]Exactly what they are, no one knows, but one of the things the US is pretty sure of is that except for the potential drone threat that Cuba has recently acquired these attack drones, they don't have much of a military to speak of.

[00:04:55]They believe that the once vaunted, at least for the Caribbean, military or air force that Cuba used to have is now essentially just a bunch of rusting planes that can barely fly. So, if there were to be military action, it wouldn't be much of a fight at all. But that doesn't mean the US is going to occupy because once you start to occupy a place, well, you can kind of get stuck there. Just look what happened in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

[00:05:18]>> Mark Caputo with us tonight. Thanks, Mark.

[00:05:21]>> Thank you. He back.