Amid reports of energy blackouts and violent unrest in Cuba, Republicans representing South Florida say it’s time communists relinquish control of the island.
U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart told Florida Politics he was confident that a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump would succeed in driving regime change.
“I never predict timelines,” Díaz-Balart said, “but I’m convinced that the regime will not survive this Trump term, as I have stated in the past.”
The Cuban government Monday acknowledged an islandwide blackout, the most significant consequence yet in an energy crisis since fuel supplies from Venezuela shut off after the arrest of that nation’s President, Nicolás Maduro.
U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Coral Gables Republican, said the latest development showed time has run out for a communist regime in place since Fidel Castro led a revolution and took power in 1959.
“This is the true legacy of the Castros: darkness, scarcity, and a nation pushed to the brink,” Salazar posted on X in Spanish. “The Cuban people deserve freedom, democracy, and a country that works for them, not a failed dictatorship clinging to power.”
The bilingual posts from South Florida’s Cuban American delegation are important in part because they are read both by constituents and diplomats in the U.S., but also in Cuba. Díaz-Balart spent much of Monday sharing news reports from the island and responses of Cuban American leaders in Florida.
News of the blackout came amid reports and video released online of protesters setting fire to communist party headquarters in Havana.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, a Miami-Dade Republican and the only sitting member of Congress born in Cuba, suggested the developments meant an aggressive timetable for regime change there. He praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, formerly Florida’s senior U.S. Senator, for spurring a shift.
“The countdown to a Free Cuba has begun,” Giménez posted. “With President Trump and Marco Rubio leading the way, liberty is only weeks away. No more regime. No more oppression.”
Notably, developments occur amid reports that Rubio has conducted back-channel talks with members of the Castro family. But Florida lawmakers who long worked with Rubio in Congress.
But Díaz-Balart said any effort to negotiate seemed like the final sounds from a departing political force.
“The regime continues to do what it has done for decades, hoping to get concessions from the U.S.,” Díaz-Balart said. “This time they have run into an Administration that is neither confused, weak, nor interested in measures that only buy time for the dictatorship.”