Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kidrow. This is The Daily. For more than six decades, the United States has tried and failed to topple the regime in Cuba. But after ousting Cuba's closest ally, Nicolas Maduro, and pushing the country into dire economic crisis, the Trump administration is closer than ever to forcing radical change on the island.
Today, my colleagues Francis Robles and Michael Crowley on how this latest escalation is pushing Cuba to the brink. And whether this time, finally, the U.S. government will get what it wants. It's Tuesday, February 17th. Frenchie, it's wonderful to have you here on The Daily.
Thanks for having me.
So I think it's fair to say you are the New York Times' Cuba whisperer. You've been covering Cuba for how long? Decades?
Decades. I actually looked it up today. I wanted to see what was my first article about Cuba. And it was the summer of 1993. Wow.
Wow. So you obviously have seen this country go through crisis after crisis in that time. But I think there is something about this moment that feels different, at least for me looking at what's playing out on the island. Does that feel right to you?
A hundred percent. I interviewed an economist who told me a funny joke that says, how come Cubans have such short index fingers? Well, I don't know why. Well, it's from banging their finger on the table for years saying, next year we'll be having roast pork in Havana at Christmas. They've been saying this for 60 years, that this is the last year of the Cuban regime.
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Chapter 2: What has been the historical relationship between the U.S. and Cuba?
And so it was receiving the other 60%, either from Venezuela or from Mexico. Now it is getting zero of that.
Acute fuel shortages have gotten even worse after U.S. President Donald Trump announced two weeks ago that he'd imposed tariffs on any country sending oil to Cuba.
The standoff between the two countries is raising fears over a full-blown humanitarian crisis.
And so you're starting to see buses are not going to be able to run.
At the same time, hospitals have already shut down in the last days.
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Chapter 3: How did the Trump administration's policies escalate tensions with Cuba?
And schools and universities have had to reduce their teaching schedules to save fuel.
They're announcing that banks will only be open by certain days.
Everyone's riding tricycles now. The car business is falling apart.
They're going to get to a point where they don't have the gasoline to deliver food to the store. So what are people supposed to do?
I'm going to look for a better life because things here are really bad.
That's the big thing that people are wondering. How long does this go on for and how bad does it get before somebody cries uncle?
Right. You're saying basically that a corner has been turned in Cuba. After years and years of suffering, there may be a kind of change coming. And what we understand from your reporting and from, honestly, the public statements of the administration is that this crisis that Cuba is facing now is intentional. It's the result of a carefully planned policy, right, by the Trump administration.
Can you just lay out for me why? Why has the U.S. been so dead set on toppling the regime in Cuba?
I guess it comes down to the simple fact that the United States government does not want a communist regime in their backyard. I mean, a one-party state, a centralized economy, lack of basic freedoms, jailed dissidents — This is the antithesis of what the United States represents and what it wants in the Western Hemisphere. Right. And so we have to turn the clock back to 1960.
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Chapter 4: What are the current economic conditions in Cuba?
Our job is to dig out the facts that provide a foundation for these conversations. These facts don't just come out of the ether. It requires reporters to spend hours upon hours talking to sources, digging up documents. Also, if the story is a story that a powerful person doesn't want in print, there's threats of lawsuits and all kinds of things. So it's a really massive operation.
There aren't that many places anymore who invest at that level in journalism. Without a well-funded and rigorous free press, people in power have much more leeway to do whatever the heck it is that they want to do.
If you think that it's worthwhile to have journalists on the job digging out information, you can subscribe to The New York Times because without you, none of us can do the work that we do.
So, Michael, our colleague Frenchy Robles just told us that the Cuban regime is more vulnerable than it's ever been because of the policies that the Trump administration has carried out. You cover the administration's foreign policy. So take me inside that story. What are you seeing?
Well, this is very much by design. The Trump administration until now has not talked a lot about Cuba, but has always had big plans for Cuba. And I think it's important to understand how much this is coming from Marco Rubio. Rubio is driving this. And we may be approaching an endgame that Rubio has worked towards for decades now.
Okay, so Rubio is absolutely central, you're saying. Why is this his singular obsession? Just tell me what his motivations are.
You know, let's start with his background and origins. Rubio is Cuban-American. His parents fled to the United States from Cuba before Castro took power in 1959, but were very strongly anti-Castro. So Rubio grows up in a community of Cuban exiles, and he makes it really his signature issue.
as he dives into the politics of South Florida, where Cuban exiles who are vituperatively opposed to the Cuban regime have enormous influence. And Rubio has made his opposition to the Cuban government and his efforts to promote its overthrow central to his political identity for his entire career. And maybe the most vivid detail to underscore that is when Rubio himself ran for president in 2016,
Thank you. Thank you.
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Chapter 5: How is the U.S. strategy towards Cuba connected to Venezuela?
Like, are they looking to find a partner within the Cuban regime that they could work with to kind of negotiate change? Someone like Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela, the former vice president, to Maduro, who's now leading the country and working with the U.S.? Is that the best case here?
Well, it could be. But the experts that I talk to say, in the words of one of them, it's a fool's errand to try to find Adelce Rodriguez in Cuba. Hmm. Why? Because of the nature of their political system, number one, it's very unlikely that you would have somebody who was willing to kind of step out of the political culture and allow themselves to be seen as a sort of American puppet.
At least in Venezuela, you have a substantial part of the population that has some sympathy for the United States. But there's just going to be very little of that in Cuba. The other problem is that it's a question of what you would want from the Cubans. And Rubio gave an interview over the weekend that gave us some clues as to what they might be thinking.
And he said that it's really important that Cuba's government agree to some significant changes to its state-run socialist economy. He really emphasized the economy over the political system. But he has made clear many times over the years that other deals the U.S. has struck with the Cuban government, which in his view have led to very incremental reforms were almost worse than nothing.
You know, Rubio's reaction is that that's the Cuban government being dishonest, playing for time, making promises it has no intention of keeping and eventually reneging on.
Well, and to be fair, it's true that this regime is absolutely expert in buying time. That is what they have done over and over again. This is a pattern, a well-established pattern.
That's absolutely right. So that leaves you with a situation where it looks like the Cuban government would have to essentially agree to its own demise. to get Trump off its back. And that seems very unlikely. I mean, it's basically suicidal. Again, I'm talking to many people who have followed the Cuban leadership over the years, and they say that they just can't imagine that happening.
Now, at the same time, if this economy and society is totally collapsing around them, and who knows, maybe at some point you start having popular protests, that could convince them to make a deal like that. But that's a very extreme situation.
Michael, given those complications, can we actually just drill down on what Trump wants here, big picture? It's not as if Cuba has a ton to offer at the negotiating table with the U.S. We know for Rubio, this is personal. But my impression is that outside of the large Cuban-American community in South Florida, not many Americans see toppling the Cuban regime as a huge priority.
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