ANALYSIS: Trump Wants to "Take Over" Cuba — and No One Seems Alarmed

When the United States “Took Over” Countries—A How-To Guide

The verb “to take over” has a long and bloody history in relations between Washington and Latin America. Guatemala in 1954, when the CIA overthrew a democratically elected president because he had dared to redistribute land owned by the United Fruit Company. Chile in 1973, when Salvador Allende died in a palace bombed by planes that Washington had helped arm. Panama in 1989, when 27,000 U.S. soldiers invaded a sovereign country to arrest a man—Manuel Noriega—who had been a CIA ally for years.

Each time, the same pattern. First, economic strangulation. Then political destabilization. Then intervention—military, paramilitary, or by proxy. And each time, the same justification: we’re coming to “liberate” an oppressed people. The wording changes. The method remains the same.

The Monroe Doctrine isn’t dead—it’s just changed its vocabulary

In 1823, President James Monroe declared that the Western Hemisphere was the exclusive domain of the United States. Two centuries later, Trump doesn’t quote Monroe. He doesn’t need to. When he says he wants to “take” Cuba, he’s reviving a doctrine that generations of diplomats had learned to cloak in multilateralism and polite language. Trump, on the other hand, says it as it is. Unvarnished. Without euphemisms.

And that is perhaps what is most disturbing. Not what he says—but what he reveals. Because the truth is that U.S. policy toward Cuba has never really changed in its objectives. Obama had opened a diplomatic window between 2014 and 2016. Trump slammed it shut with the force of a slamming door. And Biden has done almost nothing to reopen it.

Six blackouts in how many months—the grim tally

The first widespread blackout struck Cuba in October 2024. The national power grid collapsed all at once, plunging the entire island into darkness. Experts at the time described the system as being “on the brink of collapse.” Since then, that abyss has swallowed Cuba five more times.

Six widespread blackouts. The word “widespread” deserves some attention. This isn’t a neighborhood without power for a few hours. It’s an entire country—eleven million people—suddenly deprived of all electricity. Traffic lights go out. Water pumps stop working. Neonatal incubators shut down. And in the sudden silence of Havana plunged into darkness, you can hear the sound of the embargo.

The Venezuelan Oil That No Longer Arrives

Cuba has historically depended on subsidized Venezuelan oil to fuel its aging thermal power plants. But Venezuela, itself strangled by U.S. sanctions, has drastically reduced its shipments. And Russia, which had partially stepped in to fill the gap, is now too busy fueling its own war machine in Ukraine to maintain its Caribbean commitments.

Cuba thus finds itself caught in a geopolitical vise, with each jaw of the vise operated—directly or indirectly—by Washington. The embargo blocks access to normal markets. Sanctions against Venezuela are drying up the alternative source. And the war in Ukraine is diverting Russia’s attention—and its oil. The convergence of these three factors is not a stroke of bad luck. It is a system of coercion.

The Fantasized Annexation — From Greenland to Cuba

This statement must be viewed within the broader context of Trump’s territorial ambitions. Since his return to the White House, Trump has expressed his desire to acquire Greenland—an autonomous territory of Denmark. He has floated the idea of “reclaiming” the Panama Canal. He has repeatedly referred to Canada as the “51st state.” And now, Cuba.

The pattern is crystal clear. Trump does not think in terms of international relations. He thinks in terms of real estate deals. The world is a marketplace, countries are properties, and peoples are tenants whose opinions have not been sought. When a real estate developer says he wants to “take over” a building, it means he has already calculated the price—and that he is prepared to evict the occupants if necessary.

Ambiguity as a Strategy—The Frightening Vagueness

Trump did not say “invade.” He did not say “annex.” He did not say “buy.” He said “take.” And the refusal to specify is the strategy itself. By remaining vague, he accomplishes three things simultaneously. First, he maintains pressure on the Cuban regime without making a legal commitment. Second, he galvanizes his electoral base—particularly the Cuban-American community in Florida, which has historically favored a hard line against Havana. Third, he tests international reactions without triggering a formal diplomatic crisis.

It’s the “armored trial balloon” method. If the reaction is weak—and it was—the idea takes root in the public consciousness. What was unthinkable yesterday becomes debatable today and conceivable tomorrow.

When Europe Looks the Other Way

Look for the European Union’s official response to Trump’s statement. Look hard. Look for the French Foreign Ministry’s condemnation. Look for the indignant statement from the UN Secretary-General. You’ll find nothing but the white noise of diplomacy that remains silent when speaking out might come at a cost.

This silence is complicity. When Vladimir Putin lays claim to Ukrainian territories, the West stands up—rightly so—to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But when the U.S. president declares his intention to “take” a sovereign Caribbean state, those same principles suddenly seem negotiable. The double standard is no longer even concealed. It is embraced.

Latin America: Between Rage and Powerlessness

In Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, Trump’s statement was received as a slap in the face. But it is a slap to which there is no response. For economic dependence on Washington is such that every official protest must be calibrated with pinpoint precision—strong enough to satisfy domestic public opinion, yet weak enough not to trigger trade retaliation.

It’s the perfect trap. Decade after decade, the United States has built a system of economic dependencies so dense that protesting against the empire costs more than tolerating it. And Trump knows it. And yet, something has changed. Anger is rising. It hasn’t found an outlet yet. But it’s rising.

Miami, the political capital of the Cuban exile community

To understand Trump’s statement, one must look to South Florida, not Havana. The Cuban-American community—particularly its first generation, those who fled the Castro revolution—constitutes one of the Republican Party’s most reliable voting blocs in Florida. And Florida, with its 30 electoral votes, remains a swing state that Trump cannot afford to lose.

Saying he wants to “take” Cuba is speaking directly to these voters. It’s promising them—without saying so explicitly—the end of the regime they fled. It’s turning a geopolitical stance into a campaign argument. And it doesn’t matter that the promise is unrealistic—the emotion it stirs is very real.

The Game-Changing Generational Divide

But the Cuban-American community is no longer monolithic. The younger generations, born in the United States, do not have a visceral memory of exile. They see Cuba as a country to discover, not as a trauma to avenge. Recent polls show that Cuban-Americans under 40 are significantly more in favor of normalizing relations and lifting the embargo than their parents and grandparents.

Trump is banking on the old guard. But the old guard is getting older. And the question that arises is simple: How much longer will U.S. policy toward Cuba be dictated by nostalgia for a six-decade-old exile?

Sovereignty—a word that no longer means anything

The United Nations Charter is crystal clear. Article 2, paragraph 4, prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State.” Publicly declaring an intention to “take over” a sovereign country is, at the very least, a threat to its political independence. At the very least.

But international law operates according to an unwritten principle that everyone knows but no one admits: it applies only to the weak. When Russia annexes Crimea, it is a flagrant violation of international law—and it is one. When the United States bombs Iraq based on fabricated evidence, it is an “intervention.” When Trump says he wants to “take” Cuba, it’s a “provocative statement.” The words change. The impunity remains.

The Security Council—the Structural Impasse

Cuba cannot hope for any protection from the United Nations Security Council. The United States holds a veto power there. It’s like asking the aggressor to vote on its own indictment. The system was designed in 1945 to prevent the great powers from waging war against one another—not to protect small nations from the great powers.

And yet, the system persists. Not because it works, but because the alternative—no system at all—is even more terrifying. Cuba is thus trapped in an international order that condemns it to suffer without recourse, while demanding that it respect rules that its oppressor openly violates.

From Cuba to Iran—the same playbook

What the United States is doing to Cuba with the energy embargo, it is doing to Iran with oil sanctions. They did the same to Iraq between 1990 and 2003 with the “Oil-for-Food” program—a euphemism for a blockade that, according to UNICEF estimates, killed hundreds of thousands of children. The playbook is always the same. Cut off energy supplies. Wait until the population suffers enough to turn against its own government. Then step in as the “savior.”

The problem is that it almost never works. Cuba has been resisting for 64 years. Iran has been resisting for 45 years. Iraq was not “liberated” by the embargo but by a military invasion that caused more civilian deaths than Saddam Hussein’s regime did in its final decades. Embargoes do not overthrow dictatorships. They strengthen them—by providing them with a convenient external enemy to point to.

The Cuban People as a Variable for Adjustment

In this grand geopolitical game, there is one group of people we almost never hear about: the Cubans themselves. Not the regime. Not the dissidents exploited by Washington. Not the exiles in Miami. Ordinary Cubans. Those who stand in line for bread. Those whose children study by candlelight. Those who watch their parents die in hospitals without medicine.

These Cubans don’t want to be “taken over” by Trump. Nor do they want to be ruled forever by a single party. What they want is to be left in peace. For the stranglehold to loosen. For their future not to be determined by a standoff between Washington and Havana in which they are merely pawns on a chessboard they did not choose.

Imagine Xi Jinping declaring that he wants to “take” Hawaii

Let’s take thirty seconds for a thought experiment. Imagine that Chinese President Xi Jinping declares, during a press conference, that he “believes he will have the honor of taking Hawaii.” Imagine the reaction. Breaking news on a loop. Aircraft carriers redeployed. Fiery editorials about “the existential threat.” Emergency sessions in Congress. NATO on high alert.

Now, compare that to the reaction to Trump’s statement on Cuba. The contrast is staggering. And it reveals a truth that the international system refuses to admit: national sovereignty is not a universal right. It is a privilege granted by power. If you are strong enough, your sovereignty is sacred. If you are small, poor, and isolated, your sovereignty is merely a suggestion.

The moral test the West is failing

This double standard is not merely diplomatic hypocrisy. It is a moral flaw that undermines the credibility of the entire edifice of human rights and international law that the West claims to defend. How can we ask China to respect Taiwan’s sovereignty when the United States openly threatens Cuba’s? How can we demand that Russia respect Ukraine’s borders when the same principle is being trampled in the Caribbean?

The answer, of course, is that we cannot. Not credibly. And this loss of credibility comes at a cost—a cost that the West is beginning to pay in the Global South, in the form of growing cynicism toward its moral lectures.

Greenland, Panama, Canada, Cuba—the list keeps growing

The first time Trump mentioned buying Greenland, in 2019, the world laughed. By 2025, he was talking about it as a serious strategic goal, and the Danish prime minister was forced to hold a press conference on the subject. The first time he called Canada the 51st state, commentators saw it as a comical provocation. Today, additional troops are being deployed along the Canadian border.

This is the mechanics of normalization. Step 1: the shocking statement. Step 2: the media debate that treats the matter as a mere “controversy.” Step 3: Repetition, which turns shock into habit. Step 4: Action, which occurs when no one finds it unthinkable anymore. Cuba is currently in Step 2. Step 3 will not be far behind.

The Media’s Role in Normalization

Look at how the statement was covered. “Trump says he believes he will have the honor of taking Cuba.” Period. No analysis of what “taking” means legally. No historical context regarding U.S. interventions in the region. No Cuban voices—neither from Havana nor from the internal opposition. Just the quote, raw, without context, without depth, without memory.

Journalism that merely relays the statements of those in power without questioning them is not journalism. It is stenography. And stenography in the service of power has a name: propaganda.

The Symbol That Refuses to Die

Cuba occupies a place in the global imagination that is disproportionate to its size. This island of 110,000 km²—smaller than Pennsylvania—has defied the greatest power in history for more than six decades. It has sent doctors to dozens of countries. It has trained tens of thousands of healthcare professionals from the Global South. It developed its own COVID vaccines while wealthy countries hoarded theirs.

This does not erase the Cuban regime’s human rights violations. It does not excuse the repression of dissidents, censorship, or the lack of political pluralism. Both truths hold simultaneously. Cuba is both a symbol of resistance and an authoritarian state. To deny this complexity is to embrace propaganda—whether from Washington or Havana.

Self-determination—the right that no one grants to Cuba

Cuba’s future belongs to the Cuban people. Not to Trump. Not to the Communist Party. Not to the exiles in Miami. To the Cuban people. The right of peoples to self-determination is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, in the 1966 International Covenants, and in every solemn declaration the West brandishes when it suits its purposes.

But self-determination requires one prerequisite: the absence of external coercion. A people subjected to a 64-year embargo cannot freely exercise their right to self-determination. It’s like asking a man in chains to prove he knows how to walk. Unchain him first. Then watch him choose.

Scenario 1: An empty provocation

This is the most likely scenario in the short term. Trump made his statement the way he tweets—to dominate the news cycle, galvanize his base, and test reactions. The statement has no concrete follow-up. Cuba continues to suffer in silence. Washington continues to tighten the noose. And the world continues to look the other way. This scenario is not reassuring. It is simply the status quo—that is, the perpetuation of an injustice to which we have grown accustomed.

Scenario 2: Gradual Escalation

More worrisome. Trump further tightens the embargo. He bolsters the military presence at Guantánamo—the U.S. base established on Cuban territory in 1903, against Havana’s will. He escalates provocations. He exploits every power outage, every street protest, every humanitarian crisis to justify a “humanitarian” intervention—the term that has served as a cover for the worst interventions of the century.

Scenario 3: The Geopolitical Shift

The most dangerous scenario. Cornered, Cuba turns even more toward China and Russia. Beijing offers massive investments—ports, telecommunications, energy infrastructure—in exchange for a strategic presence in the Caribbean. And suddenly, we find ourselves in a 2.0 version of the 1962 missile crisis, with nuclear powers facing off just 150 kilometers from Florida.

This scenario is not science fiction. It is the logical consequence of a policy of strangulation that leaves Cuba with no other option but to seek protectors elsewhere.

The Mirror We Refuse to Look Into

The most uncomfortable question isn’t “What will Trump do?” The most uncomfortable question is: Why do we accept this? Why has the same West that—rightly—imposed sanctions on Russia for its aggression against Ukraine tolerated, for 64 years, an embargo that punishes an entire people for the “crime” of choosing a different political system?

The answer is simple and painful. We accept it because it’s our side doing it. The same logic that makes us blind to the crimes of our allies and hyper-alert to those of our adversaries. The same logic that makes us say “annexation” when Russia takes Crimea and “provocative statement” when Trump wants to “take” Cuba. The word changes. The action is the same.

Organized indifference

Cuba is 150 kilometers from Key West. By speedboat, it’s less than an hour. And yet, to Western public opinion, Cuba might as well be on another planet. We know the names of Havana’s trendy cafés, the American cars from the 1950s, the sound of salsa, and the colors of the building facades. We don’t know the names of the children growing up in the dark because of an embargo that our governments support—or, worse, wash their hands of.

And yet—and this may be the only thing that matters—indifference is not a fate. It is a choice. And a choice can be reversed.

What Endures

Trump can tighten the embargo. He can ramp up provocations. He can even, in the worst-case scenario, send in troops. But there is one thing he will never be able to “take away”: the dignity of a people who, for more than six decades, have refused to submit to the will of their giant neighbor.

That dignity does not justify everything. It does not make the Cuban regime democratic. It does not erase the repression, the poverty, or the forced exile of millions of Cubans. But it exists. It is real. And it deserves, at the very least, to be seen. To be acknowledged. To be respected.

Silence is a choice—let’s break it

In the coming weeks, Trump’s statement will be forgotten. Drowned out by the unending flow of news. Replaced by the next scandal, the next provocation, the next distraction. This is exactly what the mechanics of normalization demand: rapid forgetting, which paves the way for repetition, which paves the way for action.

Our responsibility—that of columnists, analysts, and citizens who refuse to remain silent—is not to forget. To remind people, whenever necessary, that a U.S. president declared his intention to “take over” a sovereign country. That the world shrugged it off. And that the Cuban people, for their part, were kept in the dark.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost