Republicans are excitedly forecasting the fall of the communist regime in Cuba following President Trump’s shocking operation capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump’s oil embargo on Venezuela is viewed as the central pressure point on Cuba and its governing communist party, which is already facing one of its worst economic crises since coming to power in the 1950s, with its population of 10 million facing crushing food, medicine and energy shortages.
Florida Republicans are, in particular, hoping freedom and democracy rise up in the Caribbean-island nation, located about 100 miles from the state’s southern tip.
“I think they are in trouble. The people are fed up. It’s a very poor country now. Now that they don’t have the oil from Venezuela, it’s going to make it even more difficult,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told The Hill.
“I think you should say that we have an opportunity for democracy in Cuba also.”
Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), the daughter of Cuban exiles, posted on the social platform X that “Venezuela will be free. And Cuba will be next.”
But there’s immense risks associated with instability — such as mass migration, a humanitarian crisis and a potential power vacuum — if the Trump administration decides on a Venezuela-like operation.
“We’re ready for mass migration. I was governor of Florida. We’ve gotten ready for this in the past,” Scott said.
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have signaled Cuba is in the crosshairs after their takeover of Venezuela but have sent mixed messages on whether an oil embargo or military action will hasten the regime’s downfall.
Trump dismissed military action against Havana to force regime change, in an interview with the New York Post on Sunday.
But Rubio, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, did not rule out any policy decisions.
“I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard. But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) left a classified briefing with Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday saying he received no assurances that the administration would not try to repeat the Venezuela operation in other countries.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel projected defiance during a speech hours after Maduro’s capture on Saturday, The National New Desk reported, accusing the U.S. of an “outrageous act of state terrorism.”
“For Venezuela and of course also for Cuba, we are willing to give even our own blood, even our own lives, but at a very high price,” Díaz-Canel reportedly said.
Thirty-two Cubans were killed during the U.S. action in Caracas. The Trump administration described its capture of Maduro as a law enforcement operation to put the leader on trial for drug trafficking.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said “nobody should underestimate the complexity of what’s happening,” but he added “there needs to be some transition” in Venezuela and Cuba.
“I think Cuba’s going to have a hard time without Venezuelan oil, which is long overdue,” he said.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is leading a war powers resolution to block military action related to Venezuela without congressional approval, said he expects a similar action to take place related to Cuba, speaking with reporters Wednesday.
Some lawmakers pushing hardest for regime change are looking to Cuba’s opposition network in exile as poised to move in and assert control in Havana.
Scott told The Hill he supports Cuban opposition activist José Daniel Ferrer “as someone who can go back and run the country.”
Ferrer, a Cuban human rights activist, spent four years in prison in Cuba before being released into exile in the U.S., arriving in October.
“He’s well thought of. He’s like María Corina Machado, well thought of by the people,” Scott said, referring to the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, whom Trump has rejected as a replacement for Maduro in Caracas.
Reached for comment by text, Ferrer provided a statement to The Hill through the dissident organization Unión Patriótica de Cuba, saying the opposition is ready to lead a transitional government toward democracy with the help of the U.S.
“If the Castro-communist regime falls, the Cuban opposition — both inside Cuba and in exile — is prepared to assume leadership of a Transitional Government toward democracy, with the support of the United States and other international actors,” Ferrer said.
“Our commitment is to guarantee, as soon as possible, free, pluralistic, and transparent elections, with all the necessary safeguards, so that the Cuban people can choose their authorities and national reconstruction can begin.”
But Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA officer and Central America analyst, is skeptical that the U.S.’s leverage over Venezuela’s oil is enough to trigger the Cuban regime’s collapse or to insert an outside personality to usurp power in Havana.
“On the Cuba side, our leverage points are zero,” he said.
“I don’t think we are going to achieve regime collapse, because the government still has these residual strengths, including broad Cuban apprehension about what we [the U.S.] will do to the island — if we or Miami wind up governing it.”
He warned the most likely scenario related to any U.S. action is chaos.
“It would mostly be mass migration. The most likely one would be that they [Havana] would have to drop their guard on narco-traffickers and other traffickers using their territorial waters, which, right now we get free of charge,” he continued.
“I don’t think that you would have gangs and narco activity, Cubans aren’t self-destructive in that way. But you would have this situation of a lot of chaos. You’d have a lot more poverty, a lot more hunger.”
Armstrong, a senior fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at America University, said that Trump’s designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism could help lay the legal foundation for a similar “law enforcement operation” like that used to justify Maduro’s capture.
“I don’t know if we have designated individuals in the Cuban government as narcos or terrorists, but if you do see that designation, then you see, yes, they’re creating a legal pretext to do, quote, law enforcement or police action against Cuba,” he said.
“But they could also say they’re a threat to the [U.S.’s] national interest because of migration or something.”
Armstrong criticized the terrorism designation as “100 percent bogus.” Trump imposed the designation at the end of his first term, in January 2021. It was rescinded by former President Biden in the final days of his term, and then reinstated by Trump on the day of his inauguration in 2025.
“Since the early 1990s there has been no evidence of any kind of support for terrorism or terrorists by Cuba. So it’s completely bogus,” he said.
Rubio, during his confirmation hearing for secretary of State, said Cuba met “all the qualifications for being a state sponsor of terrorism,” citing “openly friendly” ties with Hamas and Hezbollah and strong ties to Iran, and claiming it hosted “two countries’ espionage stations within their national territory.”
Leading Republicans say it’s only a matter of time before Cuba’s leaders fall, one way or the other.
“There’s no way that the communist dictatorship in Cuba survives after the takedown of Maduro. It is over, it’s just a matter of time,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told host Trey Gowdy on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the son of Cuban immigrants, said regime change in Cuba “couldn’t happen to nicer people.”
“They are murdering, torturous, abusive and evil men and the people of Cuba will celebrate when they are no longer under communist dictatorship,” he told The Hill.