Iran war puts Cuba on the back burner

Regime change in Cuba has long been on President Donald Trump’s to-do list. But with Tehran dominating the agenda, Havana is getting a reprieve — for now.

Given the amount of resources and attention Iran is consuming, and the hassle a face off with Russia would cause, Trump and his aides decided it was worth letting Cuba’s regime have a longer lifeline for now, said a person familiar with the administration’s conversations on Cuba.

But the administration still intends to change the Cuban political and economic system, the person added.

And delaying any Cuban action might actually work in Trump’s favor, said a second person familiar with the administration’s deliberations, who also confirmed the White House has de-prioritized Cuba amid the Iran war. The delay could make any future action harder to predict, the person argued.

Either way, the administration seems intent on avoiding tipping the humanitarian disaster 90 miles off its coast into a full-blown catastrophe.

Amid an oil blockade that’s severely hampered the Cuban economy and worsened its growing humanitarian crisis, Trump allowed a Russian tanker to reach the island this week — and seemed to signal he would be open to more of the same.

Moscow is preparing to send another tanker to the island, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov said today, though it remains to be seen whether the U.S. will allow the vessel to dock.

The move is a sign of the Trump administration’s recognition that “using humanitarian suffering as a tool for political change could breed many more problems,” including mass migration, said Jeffrey DeLaurentis, former chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Cuba during the Obama administration.

It also reflects Trump’s interest in not rankling Russian President Vladimir Putin, DeLaurentis said.

But it’s not necessarily an indication of a cohesive strategy, said Ricardo Zúñiga, who served as principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs at the State Department during the Biden administration.

While Trump allowed a Russian ship to go through, he may turn around and continue squeezing Mexican shipments, Zúñiga said.

And the decision to allow a small break in the blockade certainly doesn’t mean the administration has completely abandoned regime change on the island.

A White House official, who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive Cuba plans, said “we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders want to make a deal and should make a deal, which President Trump believes ‘would be very easily made.’”

Cuban officials confirmed talks with the U.S. last month — but made clear that any discussions about the island’s political or economic systems were off the table.

“He will be coming back to Cuba,” said Frank Mora, who served as ambassador to the Organization of American States during the Biden administration. “He believes that he can be a historic figure in Cuba,” so it’s more a question of when, not if, the administration takes action on the island, Mora said.

And then, of course, there’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who not only is the son of Cuban immigrants and an advocate of regime change on the island, but faces increasing pressure from a staunch anti-regime base in his home state of Florida.

Rubio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday that both the economic and political systems in Cuba need to change, teasing that “we’ll have more news on that fairly soon.”

Still, with the focus squarely on Iran, the heat is off Cuba for now. That’ll give its government time to try to shape talks to its advantage — and potentially grant the island a small reprieve from economic strangulation.

“The Cuban side, they absolutely want to play for time,” Zúñiga said. Meanwhile, the situation for Cuban citizens is “worse than almost any time in living memory,” he added.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this story.

A version of this story previously appeared in POLITICO’s National Security Daily newsletter.