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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Invasion and Regime Change in Miami</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez</div></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_mogjxqpl0" alt="image.png" width="558" height="314"><br><p>By José R. Cabañas Rodríguez \u2013 Apr 23, 2026</p>
<p>Since the events that took place in Caracas, Venezuela, on January 3,
a series of developments and interpretations of those events have
unfolded, which have had a direct impact on the quality of life of
Cubans, both on and off the island.</p>
<p>The first of these was a US military action against Cuba, considered
almost imminent, around which the traditional troupes of certain sectors
in Miami organized themselves, ranging from the Admirers of Batista and
So-Called Landowners, to Mercenaries by Nature, or the Trio \u201cYou Go,
I\u2019ll Stay.\u201d</p>
<p>Despite the mirage created by social media, it should be made clear
that all of them combined\u2014and even multiplied by ten\u2014constitute a tiny
minority of the so-called Cuban exile community. These are individuals
who take advantage of the circumstances to once again make headlines,
post their photos, be interviewed on a sidewalk or in a restaurant, and
provide themselves with self-therapy in the face of the crisis of
isolation they experience due to living in efficiencies, having no
employment ties, nor family ties.</p>
<p>As the various deadlines set in recent months for the \u201cend of the
regime\u201d came and went and the fuel blockade against Cuba began\u2014with the
island being deemed \u201can unusual and extraordinary threat\u201d\u2014 a long list
of experts in fossil fuels, supertanker routes, and, above all, repairs
to thermoelectric plants emerged overnight and without any prior
gestation period.</p>
<p>Similar circumstances in the past have always triggered a massive
surge of \u201cCubanologists\u201d in various fields, but what has been
regrettable on this occasion is that the current chorus has been joined
by people who, despite their differences with current and former Cuban
authorities, maintained an ethical stance a few years ago\u2014especially in
the light (or shadow) of Democratic administrations\u2014and approached Cuba
with more or less serious business proposals, or in the academic sphere.</p>
<p>Specialists who today go so far as to publicly disclose the ID number
of the captain of the alleged tanker that might carry a few drops of
fuel to Cuba once accompanied delegations from US oil companies to
explore business opportunities in Cuba. Others, who currently appear to
be very close to Russians, Japanese, French, and Canadians\u2014who in the
past built power plants in Cuba\u2014 have ventured to offer predictions
about the lifespan of their projects and seem to know inside out which
spare parts have not been purchased due to the restrictions of the
embargo and which have not been acquired due to alleged shortcomings of
Cuba Petróleos.</p>
<p>Although these are people who currently seem very bold in their
stance against the \u201cregime,\u201d when they previously came to Cuba for
academic events or familiarization visits, they had to request a
specific license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) not
only to purchase their plane ticket but also for the type of proposal
they intended to present and even the underwear they would wear in
Havana.</p>
<p>In another group, those who have been accompanying the National
Electric Union of Cuba (UNE) in their blackout forecasts\u2014calculating,
meter by meter, which parts of Cuba are lit or dark\u2014have been marching
all these weeks, along with those who monitor where every food or
medicine donation package goes, and those who create supposed dialogues
or irregular events with the help of artificial intelligence.</p>
<p>What is interesting about these activists is that they make all this
human effort despite not casting a single glance, nor offering a single
reflection on the community, the state, or the country where they live;
they have no outcries about the family member whom ICE has kidnapped
right around the corner from their home, nor do they tell us about the
money they will have to save from now on because they have been excluded
from social health programs. They suffer from a \u201cCuban-dependence,\u201d or,
conversely, from a \u201cUS-allergy.\u201d A rare kind of presbyopia, whereby one
sees much better what is 90 miles away and ignores the proximity of
what is right under their noses.</p>
<p>Once the days of the initial uproar had passed, they demonstrated a
strange attachment to science, when Havana and part of the rest of Cuba
were better lit thanks to a donation of Russian oil\u2014a qualitative change
that undermined their argument that Cuba\u2019s darkness was more related to
incompetence than to the blockade.</p>
<p>But the great commotion among these creatures has not been caused so
much by the resistance reactions from the island as by the shifts in
tone that the White House and the State Department introduced into their
repeated statements on Cuban issues.</p>
<p>The shift from zero oil to allowing the Russians to supply it, or to
permitting private exports from US shores, the announcement of secret
negotiations and with whom they were speaking, the dilemma between using
military force or the economic levers of Cuba\u2019s new productive forces,
has turned these people into center fielders on a baseball team trying
to track a Texas League ball moving in circles. They go to bed late,
tweaking their rhetoric, and wake up early to stay ahead of the latest
amendments.</p>
<p>They are possibly the last humans in the MAGA equation who still
don\u2019t feel they have enough of a voice\u2014or the guts\u2014to shout from the
rooftops that they\u2019ve been used and that they let themselves be used. As
soon as Trump claimed that Cuba was \u201cnext,\u201d because there were many
Cubans living in Florida who had been mistreated in their home country,
the number of former owners of sugar mills, hotels, and even coat and
scarf shops (remember the claim about the lack of heating on the island)
multiplied.</p>
<p>And, once again, it is important to state that despite their
thousands of tweets, posts, and all the modern digital tantrums, these
hominids constitute a minority. They cannot change the fact that the
vast majority of Cuban emigrants, and the American public in general,
would like to return to the days when all US airlines flew to nearly
every Cuban city, when cruise ships constantly arrived at the ports,
when hundreds of artists and intellectuals participated in mutual
cultural activities, and when there was no need to speak in hushed tones
about remittances or lie about medical treatments in Cuban
institutions.</p>
<p>But why has there been such a chameleon-like change in the attitude of some? And the answer is simple: fear.</p>
<p>On this side of the border, we know how many offices, homes, schools,
and nursing homes US government agencies have approached to blackmail
and exert pressure; we know how many foundations have threatened to
withdraw support from specific projects; we understand that threats of
potential legal proceedings or alleged tax arrears are making more than a
few people tremble. Nothing new under the sun.</p>
<p>While such pressures are exerted on some to the point of breaking,
others take advantage of the space the former have left open to step
into the spotlight and propose that \u201cthis is a matter among Cubans\u201d and
that Trump neither pushes nor strikes, but merely represents them in
their legitimate right to grant them access, to have a presence in Cuba
that would be theirs by birthright.</p>
<p>The problem with these formulas and facades is that none of them are really anything new, not even for Latin American Netflix.</p>
<p>The days of the 65th anniversary of the Victory at Playa Girón\u2014or the
defeat at the Bay of Pigs, depending on how you want to call it\u2014have
come and gone. It was a CIA-led operation, the only one of its kind at
the time, with multimillion-dollar budgets that were supposed to ensure
undoubted success.</p>
<p>Even then, John F. Kennedy, who inherited the blueprint for failure
from Dwight Eisenhower, did everything possible to ensure that Operation
Pluto was a Cuban operation in which no American fingerprints would
appear. For that reason, the planes that attacked Cuban airports in the
early morning of April 15, 1961, bore Cuban insignia; for that reason,
the discredited US representative (a former presidential candidate) to
the United Nations said at the time, \u201cthe fundamental issue is not
between the United States and Cuba, but among the Cubans themselves.\u201d</p>
<p>This minority of Cubans living in the United States who applaud a
likely military invasion of Cuba and the regime change they believe will
result from it are completely out of touch with the reality of the
country where they live. They are unaware of the ethical, moral,
political, and every other kind of collapse shaking American society;
they ignore the successive failures of the current US administration in
foreign policy.</p>
<p>These individuals do not see on the radar that a monumental defeat
for the Republicans is looming in the midterm elections, perhaps even in
the 2028 presidential elections, and they lack the capacity to imagine a
post-Trump world.</p>
<p>This minority has been an effective instrument in achieving the
Trumpist invasion of South Florida\u2014a traditionally Democratic
territory\u2014and in bringing about a regime change there that ignores the
will of the majority. They have prioritized noise and digital emotions
over opinion polls. They have even gone so far as to sideline the
specialists who conduct these polls and analyze their results, so that
they are neither recognized nor cited by the local press, which is
becoming increasingly submissive and less daring.</p>
<p>Part of this regime change in Miami has emerged from the multiple
visits received in recent days by businesspeople who held permits to
conduct some form of commercial activity with counterparts (private or
otherwise) in Cuba. They have been pressured by both federal agents and
local opportunists seeking a financial cut. The ultimate goal is to try
to replace those who have defended a stance of commercial exchange with
Cuba for decades with others who have a different attitude toward the
new forms of production already present on the island\u2014forms that could
flourish even more if they were able to operate in an environment
different from the one they face today.</p>
<p>The current phase of bilateral confrontation has already resulted in
casualties on both sides of the Florida Strait. We have acknowledged
ours; the other side has not yet acknowledged theirs.</p>
<p>(<a href="https://www.ahora.cu/en/cuba-en/26424-invasion-and-regime-change-in-miami" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ahora</a>)</p>
<div><p><span><img width="150" height="150" src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/OIP-150x150.avif" alt="OIP"></span></p><div><p></p><h5><span>José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez</span></h5><p></p><p><em><strong>José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez</strong> </em>is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba and former Cuban Ambassador to the US.</p></div></div>
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