Mambo Moment

A shift in U.S. posture toward Havana is stirring fresh expectations of change. Whether it yields meaningful freedom for the Caribbean island's people is far from clear

- BY JESUS MESA

ULISES PEREZ HAS SPENT THE LAST 5 YEARS DRIVING AN Uber in Miami.

On most rides, he has his phone propped on the dashboard, tuned in to Cuban influencers based in Florida who keep the diaspora informed about what is happening back on the island.

Like thousands of Cubans who settled in South Florida, Perez came to the United States under a Biden-era humanitarian parole program that President Donald Trump has moved to dismantle. That has not shaken his support for Trump.

“Every president talked about Cuba like it was untouchable. Trump was the first who treated it like a problem that could actually be solved.”

Perez is part of a Cuban diaspora that has watched, with a mix of hope and anxiety, as the Trump administration tightens an oil blockade on the island, opens secret negotiations with Havana and promises that regime change is only a matter of time.

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

His optimism comes as the Trump administration has imposed what some experts have called the most effective U.S. blockade of Cuba since the Cuban missile crisis, cutting off the island’s oil after seizing tankers carrying Venezuelan crude oil and threatening tariffs against any country that fills the gap. Blackouts now last up to 15 hours a day. Flights have been grounded. Food is scarce.

The Trump administration wants to push President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power, the New York Times reported. But as Washington holds talks with Havana and signals it may settle for gradual transformation rather than outright collapse, some wonder whether Cubans are headed toward the same outcome as Venezuelans—who cheered the fall of then-President Nicolás Maduro only to find the U.S. cutting deals with regime insiders and sidelining the democratic opposition.