With the fall of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and plans for a potential US takeover of Greenland, President Donald Trump appears to be trying to increase Washington's influence in the Western Hemisphere through direct intervention – and Cuba may be next.
US forces this month captured Mr Maduro and his wife at their presidential compound in Caracas, taking them to New York where they will stand trial for drug and weapons-related offences.
Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado said this week during a visit to the US Congress that now that her country is free, Cuba is next on the list. “For the first time in history, we [will] have the Americas free of communism, of dictatorship and narco-terrorism,” Ms Machado said.
On Friday, Politico cited sources familiar with the matter as saying the Trump administration is considering a total blockade on oil imports to Cuba, as part of a wider plan to force regime change in the country.
The Wall Street Journal this week reported that Washington was seeking regime change in Cuba by the end of the year and that Mr Maduro's capture had been served as a blueprint for Havana.
The Caribbean nation has long been a thorn in Washington's side. Amid the intensifying Cold War that pitted the US against the Soviet Union in a bid for global influence, a communist revolution in 1959 took Fidel Castro into power and aligned Havana with Moscow.
Tension came to a head in October 1962, when the US and Moscow engaged in a 13-day stand-off over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. After the resolution to the crisis, which took the world to the brink of nuclear war, failed assassination and invasion attempts by the US over the years further fractured the relationship between Washington and Havana.
Former president Barack Obama tried to thaw relations during his time in office, but Mr Trump reversed many of his policies, increasing sanctions and relisting Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Havana has been accused of engaging in subversive action across Latin America and the world, and being a prime conduit for Russian and Chinese influence in the region.
Its major regional partner has been Caracas since the election of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez in the late 1990s. The relationship continued under Mr Maduro.
Venezuela provided Cuba with oil, and Cuba provided Venezuela with security advisers. More than 30 of these security officials were killed in the US strikes on Caracas.
Since the capture of Mr Maduro in early January, US officials have taken an increasingly hawkish stance against Cuba.
Mr Trump recently reposted another social media user's post that stated his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, would soon be president of Cuba. “Sounds good to me,” Mr Trump wrote. He also posted screenshots of other users encouraging him to intervene in the country.
Mr Rubio is the son of Cuban-American immigrants, part of a large community that has long pressed Washington to take on Havana.
The Secretary of State, who has long taken a hardline view on Cuba, said this month that Havana was “in a lot of trouble”.
“I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro,” he told NBC after the US operation in Venezuela.
