Footage of a handcuffed Nicolás Maduro being escorted to a Brooklyn detention center will come as uncomfortable viewing for political leaders in Havana.

“Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about,” said President Donald Trump just hours after the Jan. 3, 2026, operation to seize the Venezuelan president. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s warning: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.”

As a historian of the United States and Cuba, I believe that Washington’s relations with Havana have entered a new phase under the Trump administration. Gone is Barack Obama’s “Cuban Thaw” and Joe Biden’s less-restrictive sanctions. In their places, the Trump administration has apparently adopted a policy of regime change through maximum pressure.

If the administration has its way, 2026 will be the final year of communist rule in Cuba – and it intends to achieve this without intervention by U.S. armed forces.

“I don’t think we need (to take) any action,” Trump said on Jan. 4, adding: “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall.”

Trump may have a point. Maduro’s capture has effectively taken away Cuba’s closest ally.

Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez, was an avowed admirer of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

Shortly after assuming power in 1999, Chávez’s government began supplying oil on favorable terms to Cuba in exchange for doctors and, eventually, the training of Venezuela’s security forces. It was no coincidence that 32 of the security officers killed as they defended Maduro from approaching American forces were........

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