Is Cuba Next? Inside Washington’s Push for Regime Change

Summary

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WSJ What’s News – "Is Cuba Next? Inside Washington’s Push for Regime Change"

Date: February 1, 2026
Host: Luke Vargas
Guests: Jose de Cordoba (Mexico City), Vera Bergengrun (Washington, D.C.)

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Episode Overview

This episode of WSJ What’s News Sunday delves into the intensifying focus of the Trump administration on bringing about regime change in Cuba. Following the recent U.S.-engineered ouster of Venezuela’s leader, Washington believes Cuba's worsening economic crisis could make the island vulnerable to U.S. pressure. Host Luke Vargas is joined by WSJ reporters Jose de Cordoba and Vera Bergengrun to explore the situation on the ground in Cuba, the U.S. strategy, historical contrasts with Venezuela, and the many hurdles to effecting political change on the island.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Dire Economic Crisis in Cuba

[01:44–03:29]

• Jose de Cordoba sets the scene: Cuba is facing its "worst economic crisis probably since it became an independent republic in 1902."
  • 20-hour blackouts in provinces
  • Severe shortages of medicines, food, and basic goods
  • Access to food largely restricted to those receiving dollars from abroad
  • Outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses compounding hardship
• Critical dependency on foreign oil:
  • Cuba's daily needs: 100,000 barrels; pumps only 40,000 internally
  • Venezuela had helped cover the deficit with 35,000 barrels/day, but that support ceased after U.S.-backed regime change in Venezuela ("Since the US Captured Maduro, no Venezuelan oil has been getting to Cuba.")
  • Experts predict the island could "hit a wall" in 4–8 weeks based on dwindling fuel reserves.

2. Washington’s Calculations and Strategy

[03:29–05:07, 07:06–10:40]

• Vera Bergengrun explains U.S. thinking:
  • Economic vulnerability is directly feeding into "CIA and other U.S. intelligence assessments."
  • The U.S. aims to achieve regime change by year-end, believing the present crisis offers a unique opportunity: "Not only is the economy close to collapse, but the government itself has never been this fragile."
• Pressure on Cuba’s hard-currency sources:
  • U.S. targeting of Cuba's overseas medical missions, pressuring countries hiring Cuban doctors
• Drawing lessons from Venezuela:
  • U.S. officials "kind of riding high" on their perceived success in Venezuela, seeking to replicate aspects in Cuba.
  • But, as Bergengrun notes, "There is not yet a concrete plan for changing the government in Cuba."
  • The Cuban leadership presents a different challenge: deeply entrenched, isolated, loyalist; lacking the international connections and personal incentives present in Venezuelan elites.

3. Comparing Cuba and Venezuela: Why Regime Change is Harder in Cuba

[07:29–10:40]

• No organized opposition in Cuba, unlike Venezuela:
  • "People tend to forget that there's no other political organization allowed in Cuba aside from the Communist Party," says de Cordoba.
  • Cuba's two large-scale protests in the last 60+ years were quickly suppressed.
  • The regime is described as "masters at managing poverty and administering repression."
• Public response has been emigration, not rebellion:
  • "People for the most part…have chosen to emigrate rather than to try to form a political movement."
• Uncertain endgames:
  • "It's unclear, even if they were to identify an 'in' with the Cuban government, what actually they would be asking of this person," says Bergengrun.
  • Unlike Venezuela, Cuba's government is not run by people with "massive offshore accounts" or significant exposure to the outside world.

4. Potential Consequences and What to Watch For

[10:40–13:50]

• Political risks and humanitarian concerns:
  • Bergengrun highlights the stakes: "If you really just squeeze this government and this economy to a catastrophic breaking point, it's going to create a humanitarian catastrophe."
  • U.S. domestic politics may deter direct involvement in the aftermath, especially in a midterm year.
• Role of Cuba’s international friends:
  • De Cordoba is blunt: "I think there's very little to expect from Cuba's friends, Russia and China." Russia is preoccupied in Ukraine, China offers little and demands commercial terms. Even Mexico's small oil support is being pressured by Washington.
• Cuban popular mood:
  • De Cordoba: "I think Cuba's people are enormously fatigued. I don't see them going out into the streets and trying to overthrow the government. No one wants to be Fidel Castro's last victim."
  • There is a sense that many are passively waiting for the U.S. to solve the problem, leading to "a lot of despair, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Cuba’s state power:

  "Cuba has been a totalitarian Stalinist state for almost as long as the Soviet Union was… There is no organized opposition because it's not allowed by law. And there's barely the shadow of a civil society at work."
  — Jose de Cordoba (07:29)

• On the fragile status quo:

  "They're masters at managing poverty and administrating repression."
  — Jose de Cordoba (08:36)

• On the U.S. approach:

  "Trump told people in his first term that he wanted to do something that President Kennedy in the 60s wasn't able to do… It is the holy grail. It is this thing that they all really want to do."
  — Vera Bergengrun (11:02)

• On humanitarian consequences:

  "If you really just squeeze this government and this economy to a catastrophic breaking point, it's going to create a humanitarian catastrophe."
  — Vera Bergengrun (11:28)

• On Cuban resilience and fatigue:

  "I think Cuba's people are enormously fatigued. I don't see them going out into the streets and trying to overthrow the government. No one wants to be Fidel Castro's last victim."
  — Jose de Cordoba (13:11)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:44 – Scene-setting: the economic and social crisis in Cuba
• 02:28 – The fuel crisis following Venezuela’s fall
• 03:40 – Washington’s intelligence perspective and policy levers
• 05:07 – Political parallels and contrasts with Venezuela
• 07:29 – Why regime change is uniquely difficult in Cuba
• 10:40 – What to watch: next steps and potential consequences
• 12:21 – Limited support from Russia, China, Mexico
• 13:11 – Fatigue and resignation among Cuba’s people

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Summary Takeaways

• Cuba’s economic crisis has reached historic proportions, and with the loss of Venezuelan oil, further hardship is likely within weeks.
• The U.S. sees a rare window for regime change but lacks a concrete, realistic plan compared to Venezuela. Cuba's political system, lack of opposition, and repressive strength make it a much harder target.
• Washington is wary of being drawn into a humanitarian disaster if the island collapses, and Cuba’s remaining allies are unlikely to offer substantial lifelines.
• The Cuban people, weary and without avenues for legal protest or opposition, are unlikely to lead major change themselves, with most simply hoping for outside intervention.
• The situation is fluid—but also laced with uncertainty, risk, and deep historical entrenchment.

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For listeners:
This episode offers a grounded, nuanced look at the complexities of U.S.-Cuban relations, the limits of American power, and the resilience of the Cuban regime. It’s essential listening for understanding why, despite intensified U.S. efforts, Cuba may not yet be “next.”

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hey, what's news, listeners? It's Sunday, February 1st. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and this is what' News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news by reaching out to our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain what's happening in our world. On today's show, after toppling Venezuela's leader, the Trump administration is now seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year. Today we'll be looking at the dire economic situation Washington believes could drive the island to the breaking point. And what else is fueling the thinking in Washington that now is the right time to dislodge a communist government that has weathered decades of external pressure? Let's get right to it. Joining me today as we set our sights on Cuba are a pair of Wall Street Journal reporters fixated on America's power projection abroad. On the line from Mexico City is Jose de Cordoba, and with us from Washington, D.C. is Vera Bergengrun. Jose, let me start with you. We have all seen the footage of mid century cars rolling down the beachfront in Havana, probably an overused visual when it comes to understanding the economic situation in particular in Moder Cuba, though maybe not totally unhelpful. What should we be focusing on when it comes to the island? Paint us a scene of what has been unfolding there.

[C]

Well, Cuba is in its worst economic crisis probably since it became an independent republic in 1902. Blackouts last in the provinces for 20 hours at a time. On top of that, you have huge scarcity of medicines, all kinds of goods and food. People have access to food only if they have access to dollars which are sent from family members abroad. Also, it's been hit by these mosquito borne illnesses that have affected a lot of the population.

[B]

All right, Jose, things already bad and maybe getting worse. And this is where we can connect the situation in Cuba to what has recently gone on in Venezuela.

[C]

Things are getting bad and are likely to get much worse very quickly. The reason for that is that Cuba uses roughly 100,000 barrels of oil per day. It pumps about 40,000 barrels of oil a day, which goes directly into its power energy sector, into its energy plants. So that leaves a deficit of roughly 60,000 barrels per day. Venezuela has been providing about 35,000 barrels per day. So it's been making up about half of the deficit that Cuba has now. Since the US Captured Maduro, no Venezuelan oil has been getting to Cuba. So there's much less electricity to go around, there's much less gasoline, there's much less fuel to go around. So the island could basically hit a wall in what experts think will be four weeks to eight weeks, depending on on how much fuel Cuba has stored, which is not known.

[B]

And, Vera, you report that the economic vulnerability that Jose has been describing there is very much feeding into Washington's calculus here, thinking that maybe it can try to pick off Cuba's government now.

[D]

That's right. I mean, everything that Jose has been laying out has been feeding into CIA and other U.S. intelligence assessments that the intelligence community puts together and briefs to President Trump, to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And they have been looking at all of this, but now what they're assessing as well is that not only is the economy close to collapse, but the government itself has never been this fragile. And so they really are trying to think of what else they could do since they have this goal, as we reported, of trying to force out this regime by the end of the year. And on top of that, Cuba has this long standing program where it has overseas medical missions, where they send doctors to work abroad. And a lot of that money comes back one of its most important sources of hard currency. And since the Trump administration came back into the White House, we've seen Rubio and some other officials really put pressure on that as well on some Caribbean islands and others who hire these doctors. So they're really kind of looking at the whole picture and trying to see what other valves they can squeeze shut in order to really put the full weight of the US Pressure on this government right now.

[B]

Fascinating, though, as we've seen, for instance, in North Korea, it can sound easy to go after sources of hard currency, but actually accomplishing that can be a little bit like a game of whack a mole. And there's more than just an economic component to this effort as well. It sounds like inspiration is being drawn from how the Trump administration got rid of Maduro. Sort of the political leadership angle of regime change.

[D]

That's right. That's what Jose and I have really been trying to prod. Because when you speak to Trump officials, you know, they're kind of riding high. They think that this operation to depose Maduro was very successful. They're working with what remains of the Maduro regime to prioritize getting oil, getting these resources. Trump, he feels like he's gotten a good deal. He exerted sharp but minimum military pressure to an extent, and he got what he wanted. They're trying to find a similar model that they can apply to an extent in Cuba and see if there's people within the Cuban government working with them to produce some kind of deal that will eventually squeeze out this regime. When we actually ask what, what kind of deal they're looking for, what could the Cuban government really offer? We haven't really gotten clear, definitive answers on that except for the government to just go away. Even if they were to squeeze out this government, what would come next? In Venezuela, they have a very particular model that's extractive. They're getting the oil, they're working with the remnants of this government that would for many reasons, just never work in Cuba. But for now, because they think that it was so successful, they are trying to emulate it, at least in the sense of finding people within the regime that they can talk to and then see what comes next.

[B]

Fascinating. We've got to take a very short break, but when we come back, we'll look at some of those hurdles, Vera, that you were mentioning that could make US Efforts to orchestrate a leadership change in Cuba so difficult in the months potentially years to come. Stay with us.

[A]

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[B]

And we're back. Jose Vero there before the break, was explaining that there is not yet a concrete plan for changing the government in Cuba. She noted a few times, Cuba is not Venezuela. And maybe the most notable thing that distinguishes them, for the purposes of the conversation we're really having here, is that Cuba's communist leaders have been around for decades. They have experience with withstanding U.S. efforts to bring an end to their rule.

[C]

Yeah, as far as we can tell, there's no concrete plan that the US has for effecting regime change. Cuba has been a totalitarian Stalinist state for almost as long as the Soviet Union was. People tend to forget that there's no other political organization allowed in Cuba aside from the Communist Party, unlike Venezuela, which has a very robust opposition movement which could Put hundreds of thousands of people on the street and which won two presidential elections in Cuba. There is no organized opposition because it's not allowed by law. And there's barely the shadow of a civil society at work. So it's a very different place. Also, Cubans have been living in this Stalinist system for almost 70 years. You know, the weight of that is huge. People for the most part, all during that time, have chosen to emigrate rather than to try to form a political movement to challenge the government. In all that time from 1959 to till now, there's only been two days in which there were protests large enough to challenge the government. One was in 1994 in Havana called the Maleconazo, and the other one was just a couple of years ago in 2021, that shook the government because there were protests all over the island. Well, the government was able to put down both protests within a day. So the repressive capacity of the government is very high. I say, you know, that they're masters at managing poverty and administrating repression.

[B]

I want to jump in on that because as Jose's presenting the situation the state has, they're very good at putting down popular protest and people have instead sort of voted with their feet, leaving the country as opposed to leading to some mass protest movement. But at least figuratively, this is not really a broad hearts and minds campaign. Putting yet more economic pressure on the islanders, you know, doesn't seem like it would really help in that respect.

[D]

That's right. But again, I think one of the most interesting things is that it's unclear, even if they were to identify the in with the Cuban government, what actually they would be asking of this person. One of the really important differences with Venezuela is Venezuela, for a long time, despite having this particular government, a lot of its insiders had a lot of exposure to, especially through its oil industry, to lots of people. They had massive offshore accounts. They dealt with these big oil companies, they dealt with international officials. And they just had a very different exposure and understood how the world worked and in a potential place for them in it. In a way that the people who run Cuba's government are really loyalists. It's just hard to imagine from the people we've spoken to, what's in it for them if they betray that. We don't really see a situation where they can stay in power for very long. It's much more of a binary than there is in Venezuela, where now they have this kind of pseudo capital capitalist hold over government.

[B]

Though this is a big Political holy grail, it sounds like the administration's thinking goes, something that has been desired by so many successive US Governments to see a change in leadership in Cuba. Maybe now's the time worth giving it a shot. Which brings me to my final question to both of you. And starting with you, Vera, I mean, what should we be watching for to assess whether this U.S. effort is taking shape?

[D]

Trump told people in his first term that he wanted to do something that President Kennedy in the 60s wasn't able to do, which was, you know, he sees it as part of his legacy. He sees it also as a really important part of his national security strategy. You know, both parties see Cuba as a malign actor, that its government is basically, everyone would be better off if it went away. And now that the US Government has trained so much of its attention on the Western Hemisphere, it's kind of, with Venezuela going one way, it is the holy grail. It is this thing that they all really want to do. At the same time. I think there would be, depending on who you speak with, quite a bit of concern that if you really just squeeze this government and this economy to a catastrophic breaking point, it's going to create a humanitarian catastrophe. And from the perspective of Trump's base and from the Republicans, especially now that it's a midterm year, having to involve the US Even further in Cuba, to basically stop it all from falling apart or to stop massive suffering is something they don't want to do. I think they're going to be a little careful about how much they actually want to involve the US And, Jose.

[B]

To you, what will you be wanting? I imagine it's kind of, if the US does further squeeze the Cuban economy, how do the people of Cuba react? And then I guess there's a question of, do any of Cuba's friends, if we can call them that, Beijing, Moscow, stick out their necks to help the island?

[C]

I think there's very little to expect from Cuba's friends, Russia and China. Russia is bogged down in the Ukraine war. They're really the only. The only one of Cuba's friends who has a oil to give. They've given oil very intermittently. China has no oil to give, and they are very commercial. Cuba is unable to pay them anything. And as for Mexico, the US Is pressuring Mexico right now to try to cut off oil, the oil that Mexico has been sending, which is a small amount. So from Cuba's friends, expect very little.

[B]

And the Cuban people, they respond to US Pressure, and especially if the economy approaches the breaking point maybe that the CIA thinks it could be nearing.

[C]

I think Cuba's people are enormously fatigued. I don't see them going out into the streets and trying to overthrow the government. No one wants to be Fidel Castro's last victim. And at the same time, since now there's a lot of expectation that the US Is going to solve Cuba's problem. I think it's very possible that it would feed the passivity in the sense of they're just waiting for the United States to act. But for Cuba's future at this point, it's really what I see is a lot of despair, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear.

[B]

That's the Journal's Jose de Cordoba in Mexico City. And joining us on the line from Washington, D.C. the Journal's Vera Bergengrunner. Jose Vera, thank you both so much.

[C]

You're very welcome. Great. Thanks for having us.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

And that's it for what's News Sunday for February 1st. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer with supervising producers Sandra Kilhoff and Melanie Roy. I'm Luke Vargas and we'll be back tomorrow morning with a brand new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

[D]

Foreign.

[A]

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