President Donald Trump is executing the playbook he developed for Venezuela to pressure the communist Cuban regime to capitulate, thereby removing the last major bastion of foreign adversary influence in the Western Hemisphere.
And after essentially cutting off the island’s oil supply, there are signs that the regime is starting to feel the heat.
In the aftermath of the U.S. operation to apprehend Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, the Trump administration has ramped up its pressure on Cuba, a close partner of Maduro and, since its communist revolution in 1959 led by Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, a consistent Soviet thorn in the side of the United States in its own backyard.
