The Trump administration is actively preparing for the potential collapse of Cuba’s communist government as early as this summer. U.S. intelligence agencies and military officials have already war-gamed response scenarios should the island descend into chaos, senior U.S. officials tell Axios.
While President Donald Trump has not authorized a full-scale military invasion and favors a peaceful transition, the administration is deliberately dialing up the heat, the report says.
“The best way to describe it is accelerationism,” a senior administration official told Axios, referring to the economic pressure intended to spark social collapse. “But we don’t want to end the regime immediately. There is a method. It’s done in stages.”
This incremental approach is designed to buy time for Trump, who remains tightly focused on ongoing high-stakes negotiations with Iran before fully pivoting his focus to dictating political change in Havana.
A major driver of Cuba’s current economic freefall was a rapid-response U.S. operation on January 3 that resulted in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Following Maduro’s arrest, Venezuela’s vital, multi-year pipeline of free oil shipments to Havana completely dried up. Without subsidized Venezuelan oil, Cuba’s economy has been plunged into a catastrophic, unprecedented energy crisis.
Axios reports that last month, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) conducted a quiet “tabletop exercise” simulating potential military contingencies on the island.
Military planners focused heavily on a looming summer breaking point: extreme heat mixed with 20-hour blackouts, spoiling food supplies, and imminent social unrest.
The simulation also addressed recent intelligence that Cuba has acquired over 300 military drones from Russia and Iran, posing a potential defensive threat to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and Key West, Florida.
While officials emphasize that “everything is on the table,” some Trump advisers urge caution regarding a physical deployment. “The president does not want U.S. troops on the ground for more than 48 hours. It could turn into a quagmire,” one adviser noted.
