Cuba’s Future: Regime Change or Generation Change?

The Castro clan keeps popping up as the Trump administration’s alternative to 67 years of rule of Cuba by the Castro brothers.First, Marco Rubio’s aides talked in Mexico with the 60-year-old son of Raúl Castro, Alejandro Castro Espín. Then, Rubio aides talked in Saint Kitts with Raúl’s 41-year-old grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. Then yesterday, foreign investor-friendly reforms were announced at Havana by Cuba’s foreign trade minister, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga. Now 55, he is a grandson of Ángelica Castro, a sister of the founding brothers of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel and Raúl Castro.With Cuba’s opposition parties obliterated decades ago, the Trump administration seems to believe that the smoothest way to achieve regime change is through generation change. As in Venezuela, Mr. Trump wants a gradual change toward an open economy and a pro-American government.Street vendors during a blackout at Havana, March 16, 2026. AP/Ramon EspinosaAt this point, the only card Havana has to play against Washington is the threat of mass emigration to Florida. Over the last five years, about 2 million Cubans emigrated, about 18 percent of the 2020 population of 11.2 million. Late last year, a survey conducted by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights reported: “89 percent of Cubans live in extreme poverty, and 78 percent plan to emigrate.”Historically, this 750-mile long island just south of Florida always had a big power sponsor — Spain until the end of the 19th century; America until the 1959 victory of the Communist revolution; the Soviet Union until its 1991 collapse; and, finally, oil-rich Venezuela until Mr. Trump ordered the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Cuba-trained president, Nicolás Maduro.Now the natural candidate to be Cuba’s sponsor is again the United States. To speed up the process, Mr. Trump threw a naval blockade around the island, blocking all oil deliveries since early January.A man finishes putting fuel in his car’s tank, during a blackout at Havana, Cuba, March 16, 2026. AP/Ramon Espinosa“I believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba,” the American president told reporters yesterday. “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it. They’re a very weakened nation right now.”Indeed, Cuba’s economy is starting to scream. Yesterday, the aging, oil-fueled electricity network shut down across the island. At night, the island disappeared into a black void in the Caribbean. During the day, food spoils as refrigerators warm. Classes are suspended. Hospitals delay operations. Traffic thins. Bicycles outnumber cars.Protests are mounting, according to a U.S.-based human-rights organization, Cubalex, to 130 in the first half of March from 60 in February and 31 in January. Most have been nonviolent. In a survey conducted last year by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 92 percent respondents say they disapprove of Cuba’s government. Cuba’s president, Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel, then the country’s vice president, on March 21, 2016 at Havana. Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThen last weekend, a peaceful protest against power blackouts at Morón turned violent as young men sacked the local Communist Party headquarters, burning furniture and files. On cell phone video recordings, people can be heard chanting in Spanish: “Freedom. Freedom,” and “Burn it all down.”“We are all Morón now,” independent journalist Yoani Sánchez posted on X. After dark in Havana, she said pot-banging protests have become increasingly common in the East European-style apartment blocks of Nuevo Vedado. These are residences of army officers and upper level ministry functionaries.With popular pressure mounting, President Miguel Díaz-Canel offers calculated concessions to Washington. In a ploy used to mollify past American presidents, Cuba’s government announced last week that they would release 51 political prisoners. A nonprofit group, Prisoners Defenders, says that last month Cuban jails held 1,214 political prisoners.Then, Mr. Díaz-Canel adopted a policy of allowing Cuban nationals living overseas to own and operate businesses in Cuba. To take local ownership of the detente process with Washington, he went on the air last Friday for a 90 minute press conference. Speaking to his nation, he simply confirmed that his government is talking to the Trump Administration.Some analysts predict that Mr. Díaz-Canel could be the fall guy for a Washington-designed regime change. In his stead would rise a younger-generation Castro. This would be a politician more interested in protecting his investment than in engaging in a Caribbean version of “One Battle After Another.”President Raul Castro on April 19, 2018 at Havana. Alexandre Meneghini-Pool/Getty ImagesRaúl Castro’s favorite grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, runs the multi-billion dollar tourism hotel assets of Cuba’s military. A frequent flyer to Panama, he is said to fit into modern boardrooms as easily as any of his peers among the Cuban communities living outside the country. Meanwhile, Raúl Castro, who turns 95 in June, is still Cuba’s political heavyweight. Time and again, he has acted to take care of his family. One question is: Will the politically influential Cuban community at Miami accept regime change that is largely generational change?A resounding “no” comes from a Cuban-American congressman from Florida, Carlos Giménez. “There will be ZERO investment from the US unless there is MAJOR political change on the island,” Mr. Giménez, a Republican, posted Friday on X. He added defiantly: “The regime needs us, we don’t need them.”

Cuba’s Future: Regime Change or Generation Change?

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