On October 1, 2025, the ever-tense relationship between the United States and Cuba—and its reverberations across Latin America—reached a boiling point, as politicians, diplomats, and exiles weighed in on the future of authoritarian regimes in the region. At the center of the storm: the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January, his administration’s aggressive policies toward Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and a chorus of accusations and counter-accusations that show no signs of quieting down.
Florida Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, a steadfast Republican and one of the most prominent Cuban-American voices in Congress, pulled no punches in a recent interview with journalist Ninoska Pérez. According to Celebritax and other outlets, Díaz-Balart declared, “I am convinced that the regime of Venezuela, just like those of Havana and Managua, cannot survive another four years of President Trump, due to his attitude of solidarity with oppressed peoples and his firmness against tyrants.” His words echoed loudly through Miami’s exile communities, where hopes for regime change have long simmered.
Díaz-Balart’s certainty is rooted in the Trump administration’s return to a hardline approach. Since January 2025, the administration has tightened sanctions, ramped up diplomatic pressure, and, in Díaz-Balart’s view, put “the dictatorships in the region on the ropes.” He contrasted this with what he sees as the softer stance of previous administrations, particularly Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement and Joe Biden’s partial revival of engagement, including the reopening of flights and loosened restrictions on family reunification. “These dictatorships are doing everything possible to hold out until the United States elections. They are hoping for a change that will allow them to regain legitimacy and benefit from a softer administration,” Díaz-Balart emphasized, as reported by Celebritax and Prensa Latina.
The congressman also threw his support behind the administration’s formal designation of Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” “The facts are clear. The regime in Venezuela does not combat terrorism; it facilitates it,” Díaz-Balart declared, citing international reports tying Venezuelan officials to drug trafficking and the presence of Colombian guerrillas inside Venezuela. For Díaz-Balart, the threat isn’t limited to Venezuela: Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, he said, remains a destabilizing force, while Nicaragua’s government under Daniel Ortega is consolidating a dynastic regime marked by repression and persecution.
But while Díaz-Balart and many in Miami’s exile communities see Trump’s return as a historic opportunity, others caution that the demise of authoritarian regimes is rarely straightforward. Analysts note that internal dynamics—citizen mobilization, elite fractures, and coordinated international pressure—are just as crucial as U.S. foreign policy. Still, among Cuban and Venezuelan exiles, the sense of a “historic turning point” is palpable.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government has been anything but silent. On the same day as Díaz-Balart’s remarks, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla accused U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio of pursuing a “personal and corrupt agenda” against Cuba, one that Rodríguez claims undermines President Trump’s stated goal of peace in Latin America. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rodríguez said, “The current secretary of state was not born in Cuba, has never been to Cuba, and knows nothing about Cuba. But there is a very personal and corrupt agenda that he is carrying out, which seems to be sacrificing the national interests of the U.S. in order to advance this very extremist approach.”
Rodríguez placed the blame for recent aggressive moves—such as Cuba’s redesignation as a state sponsor of terrorism, new travel restrictions, the revocation of legal protected status for approximately 300,000 Cubans in the U.S., and tightened visa rules—squarely on the State Department, not President Trump. “Trump portrays himself as an advocate of peace,” Rodríguez said, but Rubio “promotes the use of force or the threat to use force as an everyday, customary tool.”
The White House, for its part, was quick to dismiss any daylight between Trump and Rubio. Spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Hill, “This is nonsense – President Trump and Secretary Rubio are in total lockstep as the entire administration executes the America First agenda the President was elected to implement. That includes taking on the cartels and stopping evil narcoterrorists from killing Americans with illicit narcotics.” Rubio himself, in July, reiterated the administration’s commitment: “The U.S. will continue to stand for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Cuba, and make clear no illegitimate, dictatorial regimes are welcome in our hemisphere.”
Amid these diplomatic fireworks, another controversy flared. Cuba’s Deputy Health Minister Tania Margarita Cruz accused the U.S. of “discriminatory treatment” after the State Department refused to issue visas for her and her delegation to attend the 62nd Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington. Speaking to Prensa Latina, Cruz said, “This action constitutes discrimination against Cuba, a country that is a full and active member of PAHO. Far from fulfilling its obligations as host country, the United States is taking advantage of that status to try to silence Cuba’s voice, aware that it has no legitimate arguments to disagree with our positions.”
Cruz’s accusations came just hours before the State Department released its 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report, which maintained Cuba’s “Tier 3” classification—the lowest possible—due to the regime’s state-sponsored human trafficking practices. The report detailed the so-called “slave doctor” scheme, in which Cuba sends thousands of medical professionals abroad, confiscates 75 to 95 percent of their wages, and punishes defectors with severe penalties, including an eight-year ban from returning home. According to the report, Cuba generated $4.9 billion in revenue from the scheme in 2022, exploiting approximately 26,000 workers in over 55 countries.
The report didn’t stop there. It noted that the Castro regime also uses similarly coercive tactics in education, sports, construction, and the arts, and cited instances of Cuban nationals allegedly recruited by Russian-affiliated entities to fight in Ukraine. “The government of Cuba does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so,” the State Department concluded, painting a bleak picture of forced labor and repression.
For the Trump administration and its allies, these findings justify the ongoing campaign of sanctions and diplomatic isolation. For the Cuban government and its supporters, they are evidence of a punitive, politically motivated U.S. policy designed to stifle Cuba’s voice on the international stage. The chasm between these perspectives seems only to be widening with each new development.
As the 2025 U.S. elections approach, the stakes for Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua—and for the millions affected by their regimes—could hardly be higher. Whether the next four years bring the collapse of these governments or a new round of geopolitical maneuvering, one thing is certain: the battle over Latin America’s future is far from over.
