After Venezuela, US sets its sights on Cuba: report

The Trump administration, encouraged by the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is looking for allies within Cuba's government who might help negotiate an end to Communist rule in the country before the year concludes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

US officials believe Cuba's economy is nearing collapse and that the government is unusually vulnerable after losing critical support from Venezuela, the report said.

Although there is no detailed plan to dismantle the regime, officials see Maduro's abduction and the concessions that followed as both a model and a warning for Havana, it added.

"I strongly suggest they make a deal. Before it's too late," US President Donald Trump said in a January 11 social media post, adding that "no more oil or money" would be going to Cuba.

Officials have met with Cuban exile groups in Miami and Washington to identify individuals inside the Cuban government who may be willing to negotiate, according to the report.

The operation that ended with the abduction of Maduro was allegedly aided by an insider. The US military raid in Caracas also killed 32 Cuban soldiers and intelligence operatives protecting him, it noted.

While the US has not openly threatened military action against Cuba, officials say the Venezuela raid was meant to signal the potential consequences of defiance, the report said.

Intelligence assessments describe Cuba's economy as dire, with shortages of goods, medicine and electricity. Washington plans to further weaken the government by cutting off Venezuelan oil supplies and targeting Cuba's overseas medical missions, its main source of foreign currency.

"Cuba's rulers are incompetent Marxists who have destroyed their country, and they have had a major setback with the Maduro regime that they are responsible for propping up," a White House official said, reiterating that Cuba should "make a deal before it's too late".

The State Department said it is in the US national interest for Cuba to be governed democratically and to deny adversarial military and intelligence forces access to the island.

Some officials say Trump favours applying pressure while leaving room for negotiation rather than pursuing traditional regime-change strategies, the report noted.

Still, many of his allies expect the fall of Communist rule, even as they warn of possible instability.

Cuba's leadership has survived decades of US pressure.

"There is no surrender or capitulation possible nor any kind of understanding based on coercion or intimidation," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said at a memorial honouring Cuban personnel killed while protecting Maduro.

In Havana, worsening blackouts and fuel shortages have left streets quiet at night, broken only by the sound of residents banging pots from their homes, a silent and anonymous sign of growing desperation.

"You can't tell who it is. They don't yell or anything. It's just that — banging on pots," said Rodolfo Jimenez, a retiree who has lived on the same street in Havana his entire life.

"They only do it at night. People are afraid of being snitched on."