# US Threatens Cuba With Trump’s Venezuela Blueprint

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 26 May 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/d57b8aa8-a92c-42fa-9475-b456015651ee/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on Cuba’s regime. Just this month, it indicted former President Raúl Castro, announced the deployment of additional military assets to the region and released a video message — featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio — blaming Cuba’s economic troubles on its government. The push comes less than five months after the US captured one of Havana’s staunchest allies, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, which choked Cuba’s oil supplies and plunged the island into darkness. On today’s Big Take podcast, host David Gura and Bloomberg State Department reporter Eric Martin discuss what’s next for Cuba’s regime, how President Trump’s Venezuela playbook is — and isn’t — playing out in Havana and the challenges both nations face as they adapt to Trump’s vision for the Western Hemisphere. Read more: Can Cuba’s Regime Survive Rising US Pressure? We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by David Gura; Produced by Rachael Lewis-Krisky; Reported by Eric Martin; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott. Fact-checking by Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:07] Speaker 2: They've really lost control of Cuban. The President's been clear
[0:10] Speaker 2: he has other options. I'm not going to elaborate on
[0:13] Speaker 2: what those are, but everybody knows what those are. The
[0:16] Speaker 2: Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Cuba.
[0:19] Speaker 1: We are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro.
[0:26] Speaker 2: On May twentieth, which is Cuban Independence Day. The Justice
[0:29] Speaker 2: Department indicted Cuba's former president Raul Castro, in connection with
[0:33] Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety six downing of two civilian planes. The
[0:37] Speaker 2: US military announced an aircraft carrier is in the Caribbean,
[0:41] Speaker 2: and Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a video message
[0:44] Speaker 2: online offering everyday Cubans the prospect of a relationship with
[0:48] Speaker 2: the US and blaming Cuba's troubles on the island's ruling elite.
[0:53] Speaker 1: Control supice Ang Sakiago Milis.
[0:57] Speaker 2: Rubio said, those who control your country have plundered billions
[1:01] Speaker 2: of dollars Betro Nada, but nothing has been used to
[1:06] Speaker 2: help the people. The Trump Administration's latest pressure campaign comes
[1:11] Speaker 2: five months into its near total oil embargo of Cuba,
[1:15] Speaker 2: which started when the US took down Nicholas Maduro, the
[1:18] Speaker 2: leader of Venezuela, Cuba's main international patron and its biggest
[1:22] Speaker 2: source of oil.
[1:23] Speaker 1: And this is not just fuel for automobiles.
[1:26] Speaker 2: That's Eric Martin, who covers the State Department in foreign
[1:29] Speaker 2: policy for Bloomberg.
[1:30] Speaker 1: This is oil that goes into electricity. They don't have
[1:36] Speaker 1: the fuel that they need for food production, processed foods.
[1:39] Speaker 1: They've had hospitals, schools that have urgent need for electricity
[1:45] Speaker 1: that can't get it. Blackouts across the country have sparked protests,
[1:49] Speaker 1: Cubans banging on pots and pains, shouting turned the lights off,
[1:53] Speaker 1: and so you're hearing stories of people unable to be
[1:57] Speaker 1: kept alive on ventilators, unable to get the kind of
[2:00] Speaker 1: life sustaining care that they need in hospitals because of
[2:04] Speaker 1: these blackouts and this electricity shortage.
[2:07] Speaker 2: All these latest turns, the indictment, the forceful rhetoric, and
[2:11] Speaker 2: an unprecedented visit to the island by CIA Director John
[2:14] Speaker 2: Ratcliffe earlier this month. Eric says that's widely seen as
[2:18] Speaker 2: a signal the US is ready to use military force.
[2:22] Speaker 1: We've seen reports of an increase in intelligence gathering flights
[2:26] Speaker 1: around the island. We've also seen even publicly President Trump
[2:31] Speaker 1: talking about the US military carriers like the Lincoln could
[2:38] Speaker 1: stop off in Cuba on their way back from Iran.
[2:42] Speaker 2: Eric says that Ratcliffe during his visit made it clear
[2:45] Speaker 2: that the Cuban government needs to make fundamental changes to
[2:48] Speaker 2: take President Trump seriously.
[2:50] Speaker 1: Ratcliffe talking about US willingness to partner with the Cuban
[2:54] Speaker 1: regime on economic and political changes to help the Cuban people.
[2:59] Speaker 1: But if you're not willing to accept our help, and
[3:02] Speaker 1: you think that the alternative is maintaining the status quo,
[3:06] Speaker 1: look what we did in Venezuela at the beginning of
[3:09] Speaker 1: the year.
[3:10] Speaker 2: After months of build up, at two one am local
[3:12] Speaker 2: time today in Caracas, Venezuela, US Delta forces slipped into
[3:17] Speaker 2: the home of Dictator Nicholas Maduro.
[3:20] Speaker 1: There's two schools of thought among analysts here, one of
[3:23] Speaker 1: which is that the Iran war is a cautionary tale
[3:26] Speaker 1: that might make the administration retisent to get involved physically
[3:32] Speaker 1: in Cuba in terms of any kind of military activity.
[3:36] Speaker 1: But another is that as a political point, that the
[3:41] Speaker 1: administration may be looking to be able to put another
[3:46] Speaker 1: win on the board, like was broadly perceived with Venezuela,
[3:49] Speaker 1: which was a two and a half hour operation to
[3:52] Speaker 1: remove Maduro, and that that could actually increase the risk
[3:56] Speaker 1: appetite to do something in Cuba.
[4:02] Speaker 2: I'm David Gura, and this is the big take from
[4:04] Speaker 2: Bloomberg News today on the show, the Trump administrations escalating
[4:08] Speaker 2: threats against Cuba and how the US is attempted at
[4:10] Speaker 2: regime change in Venezuela is playing out in that South
[4:14] Speaker 2: American country. Eric, the US has had an embargo in
[4:23] Speaker 2: place on Cuba for more than six decades. Why is
[4:26] Speaker 2: the US amping up the pressure so much right now?
[4:28] Speaker 1: This has been a goal of the Trump administration articulated
[4:33] Speaker 1: in the National Security Strategy in December to counteract foreign
[4:39] Speaker 1: malign actors in the Western Hemisphere. They principally have identified China, Russian,
[4:45] Speaker 1: to some extent, Iran as well, these reports of Chinese
[4:49] Speaker 1: presence in Cuba being one thing that the administration that
[4:52] Speaker 1: has identified indefinitely pervasively in Venezuela. We saw a lot
[4:58] Speaker 1: of Iran and actors in Venezuela. We saw a great
[5:02] Speaker 1: number of Cuban intelligence agents living in Venezuela in recent years.
[5:07] Speaker 1: For a long time, the understood arrangement was Venezuela would
[5:11] Speaker 1: send this subsidized oil to Cuba to keep the lights on,
[5:14] Speaker 1: to keep the economy going, and Cuba sent Venezuela doctors,
[5:19] Speaker 1: but also in particular spies and intelligence agents.
[5:22] Speaker 2: It seems like that moment in early January when the
[5:25] Speaker 2: US went in and removed Nicholas Madureau was something that
[5:28] Speaker 2: was closely watched by the Cubans.
[5:30] Speaker 1: Absolutely, that was the pivot point. You had this pressure
[5:33] Speaker 1: building for years, really since the COVID nineteen pandemic. January
[5:37] Speaker 1: third was a pivot point for Cuba because Venezuela has
[5:41] Speaker 1: filled this role that Cuba has needed for decades of
[5:45] Speaker 1: a patron state that previously it was the USSR until
[5:49] Speaker 1: the fall of the Soviet Union. And now they're facing
[5:51] Speaker 1: a similar challenge because the US President Trump in January
[5:56] Speaker 1: threatened with tariff secondary tariffs any country that was applying
[6:00] Speaker 1: oil to Cuba. But the private sector has been able
[6:04] Speaker 1: to buy from American and foreign companies, and that's been
[6:08] Speaker 1: a big push from the administration. Is the theory that
[6:11] Speaker 1: if you open the private sector and you get the
[6:14] Speaker 1: private sector to grow, that that will result in both
[6:17] Speaker 1: an economic but also political opening.
[6:20] Speaker 2: How has the US been ratchting up pressure on Cuban officials.
[6:23] Speaker 1: It's really the Castro family that still controls Cuba sixty
[6:27] Speaker 1: seven years after Fidel and Roe led their revolution to
[6:31] Speaker 1: topple Batista, who had been supported by the US in
[6:34] Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. The understanding is that the Castro family,
[6:38] Speaker 1: this company that they set up called Gayesa, which is
[6:41] Speaker 1: a military conglomerate and really runs the economy on the island,
[6:46] Speaker 1: is the real power broker on the island. So we've
[6:49] Speaker 1: seen with some of these steps, including the indictment of
[6:53] Speaker 1: rou Castro is setting out a legal case as we
[6:57] Speaker 1: saw with Maduro. So what is the action that follows
[6:59] Speaker 1: from that and connecting the dots to a potential military
[7:04] Speaker 1: intervention of some kind, as we've seen lots of reporting
[7:07] Speaker 1: from lots of outlets in Cuba.
[7:10] Speaker 2: So the oil embargo, the sanctions policy that's been wielded
[7:14] Speaker 2: in Cuba, the messaging from John Radcliffe and others about
[7:18] Speaker 2: what military threat might be there. I'm curious what your
[7:21] Speaker 2: assessment is of how much that's advancing the administration's goals
[7:24] Speaker 2: here of getting regime change in Cuba.
[7:27] Speaker 1: This is a problem we've seen around the world with
[7:29] Speaker 1: sanctions which is that they impose economic pain, but the
[7:34] Speaker 1: ability of regimes to find ways around them and find
[7:37] Speaker 1: ways to survive even as the population suffers in misery.
[7:42] Speaker 1: Cuba endured this incredibly harsh and dire economic environment in
[7:48] Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties after the end of Soviet support and
[7:52] Speaker 1: the economy shrink by a third. People point to the
[7:56] Speaker 1: nineteen nineties this decade long special period, as it's called,
[8:01] Speaker 1: in terms of pointing out how much economic pain the
[8:05] Speaker 1: regime is willing to endure, or is willing to impose
[8:10] Speaker 1: on Cuban citizens in order to stay in power. That's
[8:14] Speaker 1: part of the concern here is do you squeeze things
[8:17] Speaker 1: so much? Do things become so bad that you have
[8:20] Speaker 1: a humanitarian crisis that prompts people to leave the island
[8:25] Speaker 1: ninety miles off floor of this coast, and now you
[8:28] Speaker 1: have a crisis of undocumented migrants coming to the US.
[8:32] Speaker 1: We've already seen about twenty percent of Cuban's population several
[8:37] Speaker 1: couple million people who have left the island in recent
[8:41] Speaker 1: years because of the lack of opportunity, lack of hope,
[8:45] Speaker 1: and an ability to envision the future. Cubans became one
[8:49] Speaker 1: of the largest groups arriving as undocumented migrants to the
[8:53] Speaker 1: US southwest border, and so, do these sanctions actually make
[8:57] Speaker 1: things so bad that it spurs a very immediate national
[9:01] Speaker 1: security threat in terms of overwhelming US shores with migrants.
[9:06] Speaker 2: Do we have a sense of how Cubans are responding well.
[9:09] Speaker 1: We have seen sporadic protests on the island. We've seen
[9:14] Speaker 1: in one location that the Communist party headquarters got attacked.
[9:18] Speaker 1: We've seen people setting fires and otherwise creating unrest in
[9:23] Speaker 1: the streets in recent months. But it's hard to overstate
[9:27] Speaker 1: the repressiveness of the regime and their ability to muzzle
[9:32] Speaker 1: these kinds of popular outcries. This is a regime that
[9:37] Speaker 1: for more than six decades has had a high degree
[9:43] Speaker 1: of visibility into people's lives, ability to spy on people,
[9:47] Speaker 1: encourage people to turn in their neighbors who they think
[9:50] Speaker 1: are being disloyal to revolution, and so despite the suffering
[9:55] Speaker 1: on the island, the regime has shown itself effective in
[9:59] Speaker 1: the past and being able to maintain control in spite
[10:03] Speaker 1: of conditions that in a lot of countries would spur
[10:08] Speaker 1: people to rise up or to protest in more visible ways.
[10:13] Speaker 2: As we look ahead to what might happen here obviously,
[10:16] Speaker 2: had what happened in Venezuela. The war in Iran continues.
[10:19] Speaker 2: Does the US have the bandwidth at this moment in
[10:22] Speaker 2: time to take military action on Cuba.
[10:25] Speaker 1: Well, part of that is a political question in terms
[10:28] Speaker 1: of how the Iran war and the efforts to bring
[10:33] Speaker 1: it to a resolution are being perceived. And of course,
[10:37] Speaker 1: we have mid term elections in the US in early November.
[10:41] Speaker 1: We've seen polling that shows the Iran war is unpopular.
[10:46] Speaker 1: So part of this is a political question about how
[10:49] Speaker 1: much can the American electorate tolerate in terms of foreign entanglements.
[10:58] Speaker 2: When we come backs Venezuela. Eric Martin takes us along
[11:06] Speaker 2: as he travels to Venezuela to see what's changed since
[11:10] Speaker 2: the US removed the country's president. On April thirtieth, passengers
[11:30] Speaker 2: on American Airlines Flight thirty five ninety nine left Miami
[11:33] Speaker 2: for Simone Boulevar International Airport outside Caracas. It was the
[11:37] Speaker 2: first commercial flight from the US to Venezuela since twenty nineteen.
[11:41] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Eric Martin was one of the passengers.
[11:45] Speaker 1: We took off from Miami to a lot of festive atmosphere.
[11:49] Speaker 1: They had a big archway of balloons in Venezuela's yellow, blue,
[11:55] Speaker 1: and red flag colors traditional Venezuelan and fur are us.
[12:02] Speaker 2: Putting off of President.
[12:03] Speaker 1: And Jenesse Goldriguez and the government of the Bolivari Republic
[12:07] Speaker 1: of Venezuela. You are very welcome to Caracas.
[12:11] Speaker 2: Travelers from the US to Venezuela used to have to
[12:14] Speaker 2: go through third countries like Panama, but the US State
[12:17] Speaker 2: Department took the country off its do not travel list
[12:20] Speaker 2: in March, and now American Airlines is offering two daily
[12:24] Speaker 2: flights from Miami, and United Airlines announced plans to start
[12:28] Speaker 2: operations to the country from Houston this summer.
[12:30] Speaker 1: It's one of the most visible ways yet that we've
[12:33] Speaker 1: seen in terms of creating this image of a return
[12:38] Speaker 1: to normal, a return to pri Maduro or pre Chavez days.
[12:43] Speaker 1: But still they are Venezuelans in exile who live in
[12:46] Speaker 1: fear of the government and are afraid that if they
[12:49] Speaker 1: went back to their country they would be arrested and
[12:52] Speaker 1: thrown in jail.
[12:54] Speaker 2: Erk You've written about frustration over wages and living conditions,
[12:58] Speaker 2: the price of a cup of coffee increasing six fold
[13:00] Speaker 2: in just one year. Vezuela still has one of the
[13:03] Speaker 2: world's highest inflation rates over six hundred percent. In April,
[13:06] Speaker 2: talk a bit about this disconnect the way that things
[13:09] Speaker 2: are on the ground versus this perception that it's once
[13:11] Speaker 2: again open for business.
[13:13] Speaker 1: People are still upset about the low wages, low incomes
[13:21] Speaker 1: for people in Venezuela. There's this big disconnect between hope
[13:26] Speaker 1: for the future, which people have now in a way
[13:30] Speaker 1: that they didn't have nearly as much before January third,
[13:35] Speaker 1: and the experience of the current reality, which is, while
[13:40] Speaker 1: you have companies who are down there and they're exploring,
[13:43] Speaker 1: and you have some of the first investments, and you
[13:45] Speaker 1: have lots of money that is coming into the US
[13:50] Speaker 1: Treasury Fund and going to the government to pay services
[13:54] Speaker 1: and to pay social services in Venezuela, that this economy
[13:59] Speaker 1: that has been declining for years can't be just turned
[14:03] Speaker 1: around in a bit less than five months since the
[14:08] Speaker 1: removal of Maduro, President Trump on January third talked about
[14:11] Speaker 1: the US will be running Venezuela. Prompted many questions about
[14:15] Speaker 1: exactly what does that mean. And my reporting has been
[14:18] Speaker 1: that the regime really is being responsive to a lot
[14:20] Speaker 1: of the demands and the orders being sent from Washington.
[14:24] Speaker 1: As to what policies to adopt, what decisions to take.
[14:29] Speaker 2: The Trump administration has reopened its embassy in Venezuela and
[14:32] Speaker 2: re established diplomatic relations as well. To what degree is
[14:36] Speaker 2: this a country open for business? Who is investing there,
[14:39] Speaker 2: what kind of investments are being.
[14:41] Speaker 1: Made well, we've started to see mainly independent oil companies
[14:47] Speaker 1: and miners gold. We've seen we've also seen exploration interest
[14:54] Speaker 1: in producing coal. Venezuela was always a commodity driven economy
[15:01] Speaker 1: that was in some ways both the blessing and the
[15:03] Speaker 1: curse of Venezuela. When you're living large, it's easy to
[15:06] Speaker 1: not plan for a rainy day, and that's been a
[15:09] Speaker 1: problem for Venezuela ran into financial fiscal problems in the
[15:14] Speaker 1: nineteen eighties nineteen nineties. But at the same time, these
[15:17] Speaker 1: oil companies are careful about what they're going to do.
[15:21] Speaker 1: We've seen Chevron getting more involved because they have a
[15:26] Speaker 1: history in Venezuela. That've been one of the few they've
[15:30] Speaker 1: been able to maintain production in recent years. But others
[15:34] Speaker 1: who are more cautious and are a bit skeptical about
[15:39] Speaker 1: getting back into Venezuela given limited resources for them globally
[15:44] Speaker 1: and capital and given all kinds of competing opportunities around
[15:48] Speaker 1: the world. We've seen President Trump talking about billions of
[15:54] Speaker 1: dollars that would go back into Venezuela, and thus far
[15:58] Speaker 1: we've seen a fraction of that, although those decisions also
[16:01] Speaker 1: take time and companies do their due diligence. But there's
[16:05] Speaker 1: a bit of a catch twenty two at work here,
[16:07] Speaker 1: which is that there are some investors who say they're
[16:10] Speaker 1: not going to feel comfortable investing until there is a
[16:14] Speaker 1: real reform of the political system and until there's elections
[16:18] Speaker 1: in the transition to democracy and greater transparency of the
[16:21] Speaker 1: rule of law. They've passed an important hydrocarbon's law, they've
[16:24] Speaker 1: done some reforms to make it more investor friendly. But
[16:28] Speaker 1: I was speaking with someone down there who said, listen,
[16:31] Speaker 1: what's happened so far domestically in Venezuela. None of it
[16:35] Speaker 1: is are changes that could not be at some point
[16:39] Speaker 1: reversed if the dynamic changes. And the only way that
[16:43] Speaker 1: you get truly solidifying all of the changes is if
[16:49] Speaker 1: the country returns to democracy in a way that investors
[16:53] Speaker 1: can trust and in a way that investors see the
[16:56] Speaker 1: rule of law. And the big open question is how quickly?
[16:59] Speaker 1: Can can that be reasonably done? Are we talking about
[17:02] Speaker 1: a period of a few months or more likely a
[17:05] Speaker 1: year or a couple of years. We actually met Delsi
[17:09] Speaker 1: Rodriguez very briefly, and one of my colleagues at president
[17:13] Speaker 1: Ririga is when will there be elections in Venezuela? And
[17:16] Speaker 1: she answered in English some time. She said, I don't know,
[17:22] Speaker 1: sometime and that that that's you know, was kind of
[17:25] Speaker 1: a tell as to the strategy for the current government, uh,
[17:31] Speaker 1: you know, which is largely still a post Maduro government.
[17:34] Speaker 1: The thing a lot of people are looking for is
[17:36] Speaker 1: when will it be a transition not in just the
[17:40] Speaker 1: the individuals running the country, but more of a cultural
[17:44] Speaker 1: transition from the current regime.
[17:49] Speaker 2: Eric, let me ask you lastly, what the lesson here
[17:52] Speaker 2: is for for Cuba and its future as it looks
[17:55] Speaker 2: to what's going on in Venezuela. Obviously there are a
[17:57] Speaker 2: lot of differences in these these two countries, but how
[18:00] Speaker 2: are you looking at them side by side? Moving forward?
[18:03] Speaker 1: I think Maduro's removal from Venezuela has widened the overturn
[18:10] Speaker 1: window of outcomes that we can expect from US foreign
[18:15] Speaker 1: policy and also from missions that US foreign policy would
[18:18] Speaker 1: undertake even as the US was amassing naval assets and
[18:24] Speaker 1: military assets in the Southern Caribbean in the final months
[18:27] Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, there were plenty of people who said,
[18:31] Speaker 1: this is all sayer rattling, this is all for show.
[18:33] Speaker 1: The US is never going to act against Venezuela. They're
[18:36] Speaker 1: looking just to cut a deal. And the point that's
[18:39] Speaker 1: been underlined for me many times by people in the
[18:42] Speaker 1: Trump administration is that Trump prefers diplomacy, he would prefer
[18:47] Speaker 1: to make a deal, but he's not afraid to use force.
[18:54] Speaker 1: And the attacks on Venezuela to remove Maduro the main
[19:00] Speaker 1: campaign and the war begun in Iran in late February
[19:04] Speaker 1: is another data point. Last June's bombing of Iran's nuclear
[19:08] Speaker 1: sites is yet another data point. And essentially the message
[19:12] Speaker 1: from these people in the administration is take seriously the
[19:16] Speaker 1: threat of using force to achieve foreign policy outcomes. So
[19:21] Speaker 1: I think that's the message that I hear most frequently
[19:24] Speaker 1: in my reporting, and I think it's the message that
[19:27] Speaker 1: Director Radcliffe sent to Cuba when he was there.
[19:36] Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David
[19:38] Speaker 2: Gurat to get more from the Big Take and unlimited
[19:40] Speaker 2: access to all of bloomberg dot Com. Subscribe today at
[19:43] Speaker 2: bloomberg dot com slash podcast offer. If you like this episode,
[19:47] Speaker 2: make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever
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[19:52] Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow

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