A Golden Dawn for Cuba-US Relations? The potential for reconciliation between Trump’s America and Díaz-Canel’s Cuba
13/04/2025 - Written by Raphael McMahon
Introduction: A History of Tension
The American economic embargo against Cuba has become an ostensibly permanent feature of international relations. Since 1960 the US government has applied some form of economic sanctions against Cuba. The embargo effectively bans American trade with Cuban interests, restricts financial transfers between the two countries, curbs the ability of Cubans to travel to the US and vice versa and discourages foreign companies from conducting business in Cuba. The trade embargo was initially a response to the nationalisation of U.S.-owned businesses on the island after the Cuban Revolution by its architect Fidel Castro, whose political leadership of Cuba would last from 1959 to 2008, and was subsequently maintained due to Cuba’s alliance with the USSR during the Cold War. However, the fall of the Soviet bloc did not herald the end of the embargo as Cuba’s socialist regime survived, meaning that the American justification for the embargo as a tool for regime change remained applicable. Durable Cuban-American reconciliation seems like a distant reality. Although relations between the two nations improved significantly during the second administration of U.S. President Barack Obama (2013-2017), the first administration of President Donald Trump (2017-2021) increased sanctions against Cuba and the second Trump administration (2025-2029) looks likely to continue the tradition. Given the decline of the Cuban economy and the exodus of young Cubans to the US and other countries, an intensification of sanctions could cause Cuban economic collapse. However, changes in the political philosophy of the American Republican party, from interventionism towards isolationism, indicate the increasing unwillingness of the American right-wing to intervene in foreign nations’ internal affairs. This, combined with subtle signs that the Cuban government is ready for dialogue, could present both parties with a unique opportunity for lasting reconciliation. This report describes this opportunity, outlining a path to a rapprochement that is in the best interest of Trump, the Cuban government and the Cuban people.
Trump and Díaz-Canel
During the Cold War, the presence of a communist nation on the American doorstep frightened an American political establishment that resolutely sought to contain the spread of communism. However, the Marxist-Leninist regimes of the 20th Century have largely disappeared and the remaining few are either ideological hermits or capitalist in all but name. Cuba is no threat to American global or regional domination. Despite this, thus far, Trump’s hard-line anti-Cuba policy, inherited from his first term, has been inflexible. Trump reversed President Joe Biden’s (2021-2025) last-minute removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and added the hawkish Marco Rubio, a profoundly anti-Castro Cuban American, to his cabinet as Secretary of State. For its part, the Cuban government has consistently criticised Trump. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has expressed his vehement opposition to Trump’s redesignation of Cuba as a supporter of terrorism and has aggressively reiterated the Cuban willingness to combat this alleged intensification of ‘the cruel economic war against Cuba’.
This mutual animosity notwithstanding, a deal between the two nations is conceivable. Many of Trump’s most prominent and vociferous supporters are deeply isolationist and steadfastly oppose all foreign intervention. This aversion to intervention could extend to the economic embargo, whose stated raison d’etre is to exert economic pressure on the Cuban government to accept democratic political reform. Essentially, the current justification of its existence is that it is a necessary punishment for a nation whose system of governance and dominant ideology happen to differ from the American one. Many in the Republican base seem to have abandoned this interventionist principle, a principle rooted in a decades-long, bipartisan tradition of believing that the US should play a leading role in global affairs.
Furthermore, Díaz-Canel seems, albeit marginally, more ideologically moderate than his Castro predecessors. Given Raúl Castro's – Fidel Castro’s brother and the Cuban President between 2008 and 2018 - ailing health, Díaz-Canel appears poised to take a more central role in Cuban politics, one more befitting of his title as Cuban President. With regards to reconciliation with the US, Díaz-Canel has already extended an olive branch; he released political prisoners in accordance with the stipulations of a Biden-era deal that would see Cuba release prisoners in exchange for its removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The prisoners were released despite Trump’s reversal of the American end of the deal, indicating Díaz-Canel’s potential willingness for political dialogue.
Core Arguments
Lifting the economic embargo would benefit both sides. Firstly, its end would bring the Trump administration significant diplomatic kudos in the overwhelmingly anti-embargo international community. Secondly, ending the economic embargo could help avoid either the exacerbation of the migratory crisis on the US-Mexico border or the creation of a new crisis in Florida. A post-communist, likely crime-ridden state born out of the ashes of the economic collapse that Cuba currently faces is unlikely to benefit Trump. Such a state would likely haemorrhage migrants seeking the comparative economic safety of Floridian shores, an unattractive prospect for Trump’s anti-immigration base. Most Republican voters see both legal and illegal immigration as a threat. Surging numbers of economic migrants to the US from neighbouring Cuba are therefore likely to trouble Republican voters. Republican aversion to recent increases in Haitian migration to the US, caused by a succession of political and economic crises and vocalised in Trump’s disparaging claims about Haitian migrants eating pets in 2024 election debates, exemplifies this. Republican voters will therefore be wary of a similar situation arising in Cuba. Since 2022 more than 850,000 Cuban migrants have arrived in the US. The profound cultural and familial ties between the large Cuban-American diaspora community, some 2.4 million strong, and the inhabitants of Cuba proper mean that the majority of future Cuban migrants will likely target the US as their primary destination.
The Cuban government, for its part, cannot maintain the status quo. Although the government does not face imminent collapse, the nation’s decline seems increasingly terminal. High inflation, regular blackouts, increasing rates of extreme poverty, a crumbling tourism industry and food shortages are symptomatic of this decline. The country also faces a demographic disaster. The nation is effectively facing a population collapse. The Cuban economist and demographer Carlos Albizu-Campos estimates that the island’s population fell by 18% between 2022 and 2023 alone. Such demographic trends, on an island with a population of roughly 11 million people (as of 2012), are unsustainable as they signal a decimation of the Cuban workforce. The Cuban economy is, therefore, fighting a two-front war against both the mass desertion of its workers and the suffocation of the embargo. In 2022-2023 alone, the embargo ‘cost Cuba an estimated $4.87 billion in losses’. Under the current circumstances, eventual economic catastrophe in Cuba seems inevitable.
Therefore, common ground between the two governments exists despite ideological differences. The reduction of Cuban migration, given its importance to both governments, could therefore serve as a starting point for mutually beneficial negotiations. Negotiation with nations previously considered politically and ideologically unpalatable by the American political establishment has precedent in the Trump era; Trump became the first sitting president to enter North Korea. Furthermore, although no formal negotiation has taken place thus far, Trump has mentioned the possibility of negotiating a ‘strong, solid, good deal’ with Cuba.
Key Players
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Cuban President Díaz-Canel are key players given their relatively new accession to positions of power. Marco Rubio could represent an obstacle to productive negotiations as he has consistently supported the embargo and the charge of state terrorism directed at Cuba. Rubio emphasised to the U.S. Senate Committee that he considered Cuba a sponsor of terrorism, citing Cuba’s alleged support for FARC, ELN, Hamas and Hezbollah. He also criticised Cuba’s political proximity to US adversaries such as Iran, China and Russia. However, Rubio defers to Trump and reiterated that any US policy towards Cuba must have Trump’s ultimate approval. Therefore, Trump’s position is paramount, and he has been known to neglect the more hawkish members of his cabinet in favour of negotiations with adversaries.
Most of the international community has long opposed the embargo and would likely endorse negotiations. The UN General Assembly has, on 32 occasions, voted to condemn the embargo and, as of 2024, the only UN nations in favour of the embargo are the US and Israel. Historically, the Vatican has acted as a political intermediary between the US and Cuba and has consistently supported their reconciliation. The Vatican brokered the Biden-era deal that saw Cuban political prisoners released in exchange for the removal of Cuba from the state sponsors of terrorism list. The papal state would likely be involved in brokering any new deal.
Opportunities and Risks
The Trump administration is well-placed to set the terms of negotiation after Díaz-Canel opened the door to dialogue with his prisoner release. The American government could, using the same obstinate negotiation tactics of threat in the event of non-compliance that Trump employed in dealings with Hamas, oblige Díaz-Canel to loosen his government’s stranglehold on Cuban society in exchange for easing sanctions. If successful, Trump would be credited by the hawkish elements of the Republican party with the ideological debilitation of the anti-American Cuban regime and would simultaneously reaffirm his non-interventionist credentials to his isolationist base.
Many Cuban-American, Trump-inclined voters in Florida would oppose easing sanctions given their traditionally staunch anti-Castro stance. However, this is unlikely to threaten Trump’s electoral strength given Florida’s current propensity for Republican majorities. Furthermore, such a negotiation would avoid Cuban political and economic implosion, an implosion that could well facilitate the rise of a crime-ridden, cartel-driven state. Rapprochement would likely see tourists, American and non-American, return to Cuba in significant numbers, triggering a potential resurgence of that crucial Cuban industry. Finally, rapprochement would lay the foundation for a future democratic transition on an island that has had one official political party since 1965.
The primary risk facing both parties is that any future deal falls victim to longstanding mutual ideological animosity, thereby making an eventual economic collapse and a migration crisis more likely. However, this would likely represent a mere return to the current status quo. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has demonstrated repeated willingness to impose significant economic restrictions and tariffs on friend and foe alike. Therefore, future Cuban negotiators should heed any threat of economic destruction by Trump and work to prevent the island’s populace from becoming a pawn in intergovernmental negotiations.
Policy recommendations
The ideological animosity between the US and Cuba is a relic of a bygone era. The international community should continue to encourage the US government to lift sanctions. However, traditional allies of Cuba, such as China and Russia, should pressure the Cuban government to moderate its anti-American rhetoric and recognise the need for a political détente with its superpower neighbour. This rhetoric, irrespective of its veracity or falsity, is counterproductive and will likely impede significant progress in bilateral negotiations. The international community should pressure both sides into prioritising the alleviation of the daily suffering of the Cuban people during negotiations. Negotiations should begin with points of mutual interest: tackling drug trafficking, combating terrorism and reducing Cuban mass migration. Also, Cuba has previously shown willingness to compensate the US for their nationalisation of US assets and should demonstrate that same willingness. However, Cuban compensation will require American concessions: American negotiators would have to drop their insistence for comprehensive Cuban regime change. Only then would the Cuban acceptance of a marketisation of the economy, greater entrepreneurial, political, and religious freedoms and increased internet access for the populace become feasible.
Conclusion
A deal to end the embargo is unlikely to have consequential geopolitical implications beyond the consolidation of American dominance in the region through the ideological debilitation of a traditional adversary. It would, however, slow the stem of Cuban migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border via Nicaragua. Finally, successful negotiations could provide economic relief to a Cuban populace that has been beset by significant shortages and financial hardship since the embargo’s inception.