While headlines obsess over Iran, the real Trump doctrine is hiding in plain sight 90 miles off the Florida coast. Cuba isn’t a Cold War relic—it’s the next domino in a US hemispheric strategy that’s already toppled Maduro in Venezuela. Cuba is America’s Taiwan, and it’s clear the US has not forgotten about the island.THE SITUATIONIt may feel like a long time ago now, but two of the Trump administration’s first geopolitical actions had nothing to do with the Middle East, China, or Russia but with US power in the Western Hemisphere.On his first day in office, President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America—theatrical, sure, but also a clear articulation of US power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first trip abroad, on February 2, 2025, was to Panama, where he warned the country to reduce Chinese influence in the Canal Zone lest the US “take measures necessary” to do so itself (no idle threat to a country the US invaded as recently as 1989).The first core foreign policy interest in the Trump administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy is control over the Western Hemisphere. And in January, the administration experienced a spectacular geopolitical success: It removed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro without an American fatality and now has such a grip on that thorn in America’s side that Trump’s “seriously considering” making it the 51st state. His focus on, and success in, the Western hemisphere is part of what makes his choice to start a war with Iran so confusing: The obvious next target was Cuba.A Brief and Unnuanced History of US-Cuba RelationsUS-Cuba relations trace back to America’s victory in the Spanish-American War under President William McKinley (one of President Trump’s favorite role models), with the US briefly occupying the island in 1899. Rather than annex Cuba, the US opted to intervene when its interests were at stake—reoccupying in 1906 and later backing Batista’s 1952 coup. That arrangement ended in 1959 when Fidel Castro’s guerillas defeated Batista’s US-backed forces. After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic, pulling US-Cuba relations into the Cold War.Many of today’s unresolved conflicts—North vs. South Korea, the US vs. Iran, Russia vs. Ukraine—are Cold War anachronisms, proxy battles that outlived their strategic logic when the Soviet Union collapsed. US-Cuba is no different, and the world is still paying the price.The Hemispheric CasePresident Trump’s intent to replace Cuba’s leadership has been clear since Day 1 of his second term. It makes strategic sense considering his hemispheric strategy to return US dominance to North and South America. There is no greater geopolitical threat to US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere than the presence of anti-US states like Venezuela and Cuba.Cuba is particularly problematic. Remember: The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is the closest the world has ever gotten to nuclear annihilation. The Soviet attempt to develop a nuclear-armed enemy so close to the US mainland was the biggest threat the US had faced since the British burned the Capitol in 1814. There can be no “Gulf of America” if a state hostile to US interests sits astride that very gulf, a perfect base for any external rival to set up shop to block US exports from the Mississippi River, or even to block the US from Atlantic and Gulf approaches to the Panama Canal.Much ink predicting World War III and global disaster is spilled over China’s relationship with Taiwan: Cuba is the US’s Taiwan. The situation in Taiwan would be like if after the US Civil War, the Confederates had slipped out of the mainland, taken up residence ~120 miles south of the mainland on Cuba, become a strategic gadfly that could potentially block US shipping lanes, declared that it represented the only true government of the United States, and then accepted military support from a rival global power.Just look at this perspective map of Cuba’s location: One does not need to be a geopolitical analyst to see how strategically important Cuba is to the US. Even as his war in Iran fails, President Trump has joked as recently as May 1 that the US will be taking over Cuba“almost immediately.” Now add to the bombast the CNN report from over the weekend that US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, and it becomes clear this is no joke. This is a display of the depth of US power. Source: University of MarylandPrevious US experience in Cuba leaves much to be desired, but Fidel Castro is dead, Raúl Castro is a nonagenarian, and the Revolution has clearly failed. Sporadic anti-regime protests since 2021, driven by the visible deterioration of the Cuban economy—hyperinflation, medicine shortages, the population turning to crypto to protect wealth, and the surge in Cuban migration to the US—are elements similar to the situation that brought US military force to bear against Venezuela.Moreover, Cuba is not a millennia-old civilizational nation-state: It is an island off the coast of North America whose political and economic status will always be subject to stronger powers around it. Finding a Cuban “Delcy”—maybe from the Castro family itself, if reports are to be believed—will not be hard. Nor will converting Cuba’s immense potential riches to the economic benefit of the US.Cuba Is a Frozen AssetCuba is one of the last great frontier market economies left in the world. When the US imposed its impotent embargo on Cuba in 1962, it effectively suspended Cuba’s economy in the past. Cuba is a frozen asset. Everything about the island’s geography, resources, and human capital suggests an economy several multiples larger than what it currently produces. The gap between what Cuba is and what it could be is staggering.To call out just a few:Tourism and real estate: Cuba’s 5,746 km of undeveloped Caribbean coastline, 90 miles from Florida, is arguably the largest untapped real estate opportunity in the Western Hemisphere.Agriculture: Cuba produced 8.5 million tons of sugar in 1970. This year it will produce under 150,000 tons, the lowest in over a century, a 98% collapse. Cuban cigars are still the best in the world: Even under sanctions, Habanos S.A. posted $827 million in revenue in 2024, up 15% year-on-year, with zero access to the American market. Coffee production has fallen 51% in five years from an already depressed base.Energy: The USGS estimates 4.1 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 13.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Cuba’s offshore waters. Cuba currently produces just 32,000 barrels/day, covering roughly 40% of domestic needs. Drill baby drill.Minerals: Cuba holds the world’s fourth-largest cobalt reserves at ~500,000 tons and sixth-largest reserves of nickel, ~5.5 million tons. Its laterite deposits also contain rare earth elements and platinum group metals. Cobalt and nickel are critical inputs for EV batteries and defense applications. Who needs Greenland when you’ve got Cuba?Benchmarks: Puerto Rico, with one-third of Cuba’s population and one-tenth of its land area, has a GDP of ~$126 billion and a per-capita GDP of $39,343. If Cuba achieved even Dominican Republic levels of development (~$11,000 per capita), it would imply a GDP of roughly $110 billion. At Puerto Rican levels, roughly $370 billion. Poland’s economy grew 177% in the 18 years following its post-communist transition. Vietnam’s poverty rate fell from 80% to 5% in three decades of reform.Whether this US government will let Cuba function as an open market, rather than treating it primarily as a de facto colony and opportunity for cronies with markets as a secondary concern, is a harder question to answer. But it’s relatively clear that the US will try to replace the Cuban Communist Party, and that Cuba represents a significant economic opportunity for those able to access it.MAP/CHART OF THE WEEKI should be writing about Hormuz and oil every week, but that would be boring. We’re going in the wrong direction: Source: BloombergBLIND SPOTWhat’s not on people’s radar but should be… Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies passed the National Policy for Critical and Strategic Minerals on May 6 by a vote of 343 to 97, creating a R$2 billion guarantee fund and up to R$5 billion in tax incentives to develop the country’s mineral sector. Lula flew to Washington the next day for a three-hour sit-down with Trump, in which critical minerals topped the agenda. BNDES, Brazil’s state development bank, followed up with a $3 billion credit line for mineral companies with terms up to 20 years.What makes Brazil’s play interesting is its refusal to choose sides. Lula told Trump that Brazil’s rare earth reserves are open to investment from China or anyone else willing to process the minerals on Brazilian soil. He explicitly rejected the idea of excluding Beijing, saying, “We have no preference; what we want is to share with whoever wants to invest in Brazil.” He also insisted that refining stays domestic, a direct rebuke of the old pattern where Brazil shipped raw commodities abroad and imported the finished products back at a markup. Even so, the two sides agreed to a 30-day working group on tariffs, which is diplomatic language for kicking the can, but Lula emerged calling the talks productive.This is textbook middle-power behavior: leverage your natural endowments to extract concessions from both poles of a bipolar system without committing to either. Brazil is not aligning with Washington against Beijing. It is selling access.The subtext is October 2026. Lula is running for a fourth term at 80 years old, and the polls have tightened with Flávio Bolsonaro in a potential runoff. Lula needs to show Brazilian voters that he can stand toe to toe with Trump, bring investment home, and chart an independent course without turning Brazil into anyone’s satellite.The minerals bill is a vehicle for doing that: It is domestic industrial policy that doubles as foreign policy leverage, and it lets Lula campaign on sovereignty and economic development at the same time. Then again, that didn’t go so well for the last octogenarian (Joe Biden) who Trump challenged. Much is at stake in Brasília in these months leading into the elections.READER QUESTION Will the US achieve regime change in Cuba before the end of Trump’s term?Yes, and it will be quick like Venezuela.Yes, but it will be messy and prolonged.No, Cuba will resist and the US will back down.No, Trump will get distracted by another conflict. |
Jacob ShapiroGeopolitical Analyst · Mauldin Economics
John Barleycorn 