Only tragedy will satisfy Florida’s Cuban elite
Cuba policy also faces a monopoly in American politics, wielded by what is arguably the most influential ethnic-national lobby in the United States after the Zionist lobby: the Cuban-American lobby.
We don’t know exactly why, but the White House is celebrating peace with Iran as a victory. Maybe they are celebrating having managed to defeat themselves, to overcome the irrationality of their own policy.
In Cuba, we have a word to describe ground that has been trampled into mud and becomes more impassable the more people insist on walking across it: patiñero. What the United States created in the Persian Gulf—once again—was a patiñero. And the quagmire from which it later could not find a way out, and which has required many political acrobatics from the Trump administration, reflects an ailment that has always plagued U.S. foreign policy and cannot be understood without it.
The United States had no reason to pursue Iran, yet it did—against the sound advice of the intelligence and analytical community, despite protests from both Democrats and Republicans, and despite immediate concerns from global markets. Despite all logic, it went ahead. In doing so, it reignited a sensitive debate within the country: to what extent can interests unrelated to the United States influence its foreign policy, even when it is the world’s leading superpower?
For decades, Israel was seen as a tool of American dominance in the Middle East. However, Israel’s repeated interference in efforts to reduce tensions with Iran has created the opposite perception: that of an ally capable of influencing the actions of the superpower itself. Beyond exaggerations or oversimplifications, the debate reflects a well-known truth. Lobbying is a key way of gaining political influence in the United States, and some organized groups have an extraordinary ability to shape public policy. The Zionist lobby is a prime example.
But Israel isn’t the only example. There’s another, much closer to home, and just as revealing: Cuba.
Six months ago, we argued that both negotiation and invasion—or the collapse of the island—were undesirable or difficult options for the United States. Half a year later, it seems they have chosen to push Cuba to the edge of a major humanitarian crisis. Every decision they have made throughout 2026 indicates that direction.
In Cuba, we have a saying: Keep heating the clay pot until the bottom falls out. That seems to be the strategy of the Trump-Rubio partnership. But one must wonder how it is possible for a country with vast political and material resources to “carry out” its agenda—if that even can be called carrying it out—only by imposing a policy of humanitarian collapse on an entire population.
The United States has other options to bring Cuba back into its geopolitical orbit if that is truly its goal. There are many approaches that would be “cleaner,” more respectful of the Cuban people’s human rights, and even more aligned with the pragmatic realism that has traditionally defined American foreign policy than the barbarity currently occurring.
Yet, Cuba policy also faces a monopoly in American politics, wielded by what is arguably the most influential ethnic-national lobby in the United States after the Zionist lobby: the Cuban-American lobby.
When we say that the irrationality of U.S. policy toward Cuba has a name, we are referring to those names. It is not called Rubio or Trump. Nor does it carry the names of the influencers, activists, or self-proclaimed opposition leaders who make up the circus side of Cuban-American politics.
We are discussing the influential families who left Cuba in 1959 and built an economic and political empire in South Florida. They are responsible for launching the political careers of figures like Rubio and many others, both Democrats and Republicans. They’ve also spent decades forming alliances with other power centers in the United States.
The same tug-of-war we recently saw between Trump and Israel over the bombings in Lebanon and the sabotage of peace with Iran has played out for months over Cuba.
Do we remember when, in February, Rubio himself said that Cuba’s problem was economic and that they understood the country should not be forced to change overnight? Within hours, he felt compelled to reaffirm that they were seeking regime change. The quick reversal of his remarks suggested the presence of political pressures too strong to ignore. As we would say in Cuba, it looked as though someone had “called him into the back room for a little talk.”
In recent weeks, the signs have become even more telling.
On one hand, Republican candidate Vic Mellor traveled to Cuba to seek economic partnerships and business opportunities, while American media reported that an agreement was in progress for a U.S. company to supply and operate gas stations in Cuba for the private sector.
At the same time, senior military and intelligence officials from both countries met in Havana and at the illegally occupied territory of the Guantánamo Naval Base.
Yet, on the other hand, Marco Rubio—now firmly established as the watchdog of the maximum-pressure policy against Cuba—denied any agreement to deliver fuel to Cuba, even if solely for the private sector. He also imposed sanctions specifically on Cuba’s state oil company, CUPET, to prevent any future attempts to reach agreements with it.
It is hard to grasp the reasoning behind this behavior. Given the current situation, the United States could easily promote investment by its companies in Cuba and once again strengthen Cuba’s economic reliance on Washington.
Given the current state of the Cuban economy, the island’s government would hardly be able to turn down such an offer. In fact, it has clearly indicated that it would be open to considering it if the opportunity presented itself.
Instead, the White House continues with a policy that causes suffering for the Cuban people. To achieve what? It is hard to see any strategic benefit the U.S. gains from this policy.
In American Politics, What Matters Is Who Pays
Those who seem to find some value in this suffering are the old families that influence Cuban-American politics—the patrons of Rubio and María Elvira Salazar, Trump’s Cuban allies: the Fanjul family, the Mas family, the Díaz-Balarts, and their associates.
They are the ones who truly matter, the only Cubans who genuinely count, regardless of how much people try to claim that these policies are influenced by the entire Cuban immigrant community or mirror the desires of ordinary, low-income Cuban migrants.
In American politics, what matters is who pays. They are the ones who pay. They always have been.
For these financiers of anti-Cuba politics, there are no practical goals related to Cuba. They have already found economic success in the United States. Now, they are part of the global capitalist elite.
They would gain little materially from regaining control of Cuba.
Their motivation is purely emotional and ideological: they seek revenge, punishment, and humiliation against those who defeated them, and they want to dismantle every last foundation of the Cuba that existed without them and despite them.
Therefore, claiming that the dispute is still mainly about socialism versus capitalism, or especially about liberal democracy or its absence, is misleading.
No matter what the Cuban government offers, how it behaves, whether it kneels or lies flat in surrender, nothing will satisfy this group, which uses the American state as an instrument of its personal revenge.
That explains the distinct way the United States approaches Cuba.
This doesn’t mean the two countries haven’t been enemies in the past.
The United States has historically been an adversary to all Latin American nations because it has long seen them as part of its own sphere of influence. It has never been able to establish relationships of real respect and equality with Latin American countries, nor has it stopped interfering in their affairs for its own gain.
Yet even more relentless than this historical adversary has been Cuba’s internal enemy: the once-privileged Cuban elite that was overthrown.
They are the ones who block any peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two countries that doesn’t result in tragedy.
It remains to be seen whether they are as powerful as the Zionist lobby and whether they can ultimately drag the U.S. government into a place it has always avoided with Cuba: a military confrontation just ninety miles from American shores.
Wayne Smith, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana during the Carter and Reagan administrations, used to say that Cuba seemed to have the same effect on American administrations that the full moon has on werewolves.
Perhaps he was right.
Only the full moon is not over the Caribbean.
It is over Miami.
