In Miami, Cuban exiles hope to rebuild country as they await Trump’s move on regime change

While the war marches on in Iran, exiled Cubans in South Florida are keenly waiting, watching and wondering when the U.S. administration will turn its full attention south.

“Everybody is extremely, extremely optimistic. It’s almost a surreal moment,” said Marcell Felipe, who chairs the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. “We realize that this is our Berlin Wall moment.”

The community in Miami is remarkably unified in welcoming the idea of regime change, and people are already making plans to rebuild a new Cuba, he said.

“Miami has been preparing to go back to help Cuba rebuild through investment, and to rebuild the democracy through civic institutions. That’s kind of like the feeling. That’s the anticipation,” Felipe said.

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested this week that “Cuba is in its last moments of life as it was” and said the country was “running on fumes.” The United States cut off oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba in January, further challenging an already failing electrical grid — with ripple effects on transport, food supply and communications.

Exactly what kind of regime change may come to Cuba is unclear, but one thing that’s for sure is U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban parents, is leading the charge.

For the more than one million Cuban Americans living in the Miami area, there are worries that change in Cuba could be delayed by a prolonged U.S.-Israeli war in Iran or that the change may not be substantial.

“Depending on how the change happens, it could be extremely disappointing,” Felipe said. 

‘Making Cuba great again’

Cuban exiles in Miami have put a spin on Trump’s familiar slogan, “Make America Great Again,” to express their hope for the future.

“It’s a moment that we really believe will be a turning point. I hate to say the punchline, but it’s what’s being used here: Making Cuba great again. We who are in this community know what Cuba used to be. Havana of the 1950s was very much what Miami is today, one of the most desirable cities on Earth,” Felipe said.

At this moment in Miami, Felipe said, there is a “sense and a feeling that we are living history. We’re on the brink of living history.”

At a car caravan in Miami late last month in support of regime change, people held signs reading: “Trump Do It — Make Cuba Great Again” and “Raúl Castro — Killer,” referring to the repression of political dissent under the totalitarian Castro regime first headed by Fidel Castro, then by his brother Raúl.

“It’s been 67 years of dictatorship. Enough is enough. Enough with the crimes, enough with the divided families,” protester Felix Garcia Lopez told Reuters.

Demonstrators shared moments from the caravan using the hashtag #CubaNext on their social media platforms.

“In the same way that [former Venezuelan president] Nicolás Maduro was removed and that the ayatollahs of Iran are being removed today — in that same way, if necessary, the Castro communist regime must be removed from power,” José Daniel Ferrer Garcia, an opposition leader and human rights activist who was at the protest, told Reuters.

“Because they cannot continue killing Cubans, they cannot continue causing so much pain, so much suffering, as they have been causing.”

Others stress that political reform needs to be the priority. Sebastian Arcos, interim chair of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, grew up in Cuba and saw several members of his family imprisoned, including his father, before leaving in 1992.

Like many in Miami, he’s never been back. And while he has no political aspirations in a future, free Cuba, he does have a calling. “I have a personal duty  to bring back freedom to keep up the memory of my father, the memory of my uncle. It’s a personal thing,” he said.

“This is the time, we have to push for it. We want a transition that goes completely from this regime to free elections. And that should  begin with political reforms, not economic reforms. Political reforms first, economic reforms after. Freedom first, money later,” he said, adding that there are currently 1,200 political prisoners behind bars in Cuba.

Struggling to keep the lights on

Arcos said both the business and political communities are on board and that millions if not billions of dollars could pour southward into Cuba from Miami if real change comes down the road.

“The political groups are getting together and agreeing on a consensus. The business community is getting together and agreeing on a consensus,” he said. “And it’s the same consensus.” 

In the meantime Cuba struggles to keep the lights on.

Reached by email in Havana, Francisco Pichon, the United Nations resident co-ordinator in Cuba, stressed that an urgent humanitarian response in the country depends on access to fuel and energy.

“The energy blockade affects all spheres of life and acts as a humanitarian risk multiplier. A few weeks ago, UN independent human rights experts described the energy blockade against Cuba as ‘an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects,'” he wrote.

Pichon said it is disrupting health services, water, logistics, education and communications. “Structural vulnerabilities are rapidly turning into acute humanitarian risks because energy underpins every aspect of basic services for the population.”

Electricity cuts and the lack of fuel have made things “very, very difficult,” Arcos said. “The country has returned to the 19th century. You see horses pulling carts in the middle of the streets rather than cars. You see people using candles and coals to cook.”

But there are signs of emboldened protest, he said.

“They are going out with their pots and banging pots from balconies and backyards. And the more pressure the United States puts on the regime, the more the people will feel emboldened.”

So for now, they protest and they wait.