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Cuban leader Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel.<\/p>\n
TASS Yekaterina Shtukina\/POOL\/TASS\/Sipa USA<\/p>\n
Cuban leader Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel\u2019s time as the face of the island\u2019s communist leadership might be coming to an end, as the Trump administration has signaled a replacement may be needed as part of ongoing negotiations to push for economic and political changes on the island, the Miami Herald has learned.<\/p>\n
Cuba\u2019s handpicked president, D\u00edaz-Canel, 65, has been sidelined in ongoing conversations between Secretary of State Marco Rubio advisers and Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s grandson and other people in Cuba. And the Trump administration sees him as \u201cas an obstacle\u201d to the changes it would like to see happen on the island, a source with knowledge of the matter, who asked for anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, told the Herald. The source said that such a view has been communicated to the Cubans in the ongoing back-channel talks.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has called Cuba a \u201cfailing nation\u201d and has put unprecedented pressure on the country\u2019s leaders to negotiate a deal. He moved to halt oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico to the island following the capture by the U.S. military of Cuba\u2019s closest ally, Venezuelan strongman Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. Rubio has said the U.S. government is not expecting changes overnight on the island, but would like to see Cuban leaders make \u201cdramatic\u201d economic changes to their centrally planned socialist economy.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Herald reported on a meeting between Rubio\u2019s advisers and Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s grandson, bodyguard and closest aide. The meeting took placed last Wednesday in Saint Kitts on the sidelines of the annual conference of CARICOM Caribbean leaders. Rodriguez Castro is also involved in running GAESA, the military conglomerate that controls about 40% of the island\u2019s economy and key assets like the country\u2019s gas stations, the Port of Mariel and tourist hotels. Several sources told the Herald the U.S. discussed the possibility of gradually easing U.S. sanctions on Cuba in exchange for reforms on the island.<\/p>\n
After the meeting, Trump said that a \u201cfriendly takeover\u201d of Cuba might be possible.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s team sees D\u00edaz-Canel as too ideological and at the same time not having the power to guarantee Cuba\u2019s side of any potential agreement, the source said.<\/p>\n
The possibility of D\u00edaz-Canel\u2019s removal would be a test of how much the Castro family, which remains at the center of power in Cuba, is interested in cutting a deal with the Trump administration that would avert U.S. military action and open up the island\u2019s economy to avoid a total collapse of the country. And it would also signal how much control members of the family have over the leadership\u2019s different factions, including the military and the large Communist Party and government bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
There are significant obstacles, experts say, mainly because D\u00edaz-Canel is also the first secretary of Cuba\u2019s Communist Party, which carries symbolic clout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they do it, it would have to be the result of negotiations with guarantees from both sides, because that would be a drastic change in Cuba,\u201d said Ricardo Torres, a Cuba-born economist and faculty fellow at American University in Washington, D.C. \u201cOne of the things they have always been careful about is maintaining the idea of \u200b\u200binstitutional stability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Removing D\u00edaz-Canel, \u201cis not impossible, but it would have to be part of a comprehensive agreement for a major transformation because that decision would be a scandal\u201d in Cuba, he added.<\/p>\n
That D\u00edaz-Canel could be sacrificed in negotiations with the U.S. might come as an ironic twist for a man who has made loyalty to the Castros\u2019 legacy his political brand. He made the phrase \u201cWe are continuity\u201d his personal slogan.<\/p>\n
D\u00edaz-Canel is one of the regime\u2019s most unpopular figures, earning a popular expletive as a nickname on the island. He climbed up the government ladder and was the last standing member of a group of young party stalwarts groomed to succeed Fidel Castro and later Ra\u00fal, and has survived several rounds of purges over the years.<\/p>\n
Ra\u00fal Castro chose him to succeed him, first as the country\u2019s president in 2018, and in 2021 as head of the Communist Party. Hopes that he could be Cuba\u2019s Mikhail Gorbachev \u2013 the last Soviet leader, who ushered in reforms and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union \u2013 quickly dissipated.<\/p>\n
D\u00edaz-Canel has presided over the largest exodus in Cuba\u2019s recent history \u2014 almost two million Cubans have left since 2020 \u2014 and the largest demonstrations since Fidel Castro took power in 1959. And while Ra\u00fal Castro never truly retired and is still Cuba\u2019s ultimate authority, it was D\u00edaz-Canel who became the face of the economic crisis and the botched government policies that have run the country into the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe lost the little legitimacy he had left during the July 11 protests\u201d in 2021, said a Cuban American who has met him and asked not to be named to speak about the interactions. On July 11, during island-wide anti-government protests, D\u00edaz-Canel went on live television to urge government supporters to confront the demonstrators \u201cby all means necessary,\u201d a statement that many understood as condoning violence against the protesters.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of the people arrested that day are still incarcerated, making up most of over 1,000 estimated political prisoners in Cuba.<\/p>\n
The Cuban American source who spoke to the Herald said he grew disillusioned that D\u00edaz-Canel might bring about significant change. The Cuban leader appeared to have his hands tied by the Castro family and Cuba\u2019s powerful military, the source said.<\/p>\n
For years, D\u00edaz-Canel has urged changes and called for improved productivity in meeting after meeting \u2014as if the government\u2019s ability to do so was not directly tied to his own authority and ability to deliver.<\/p>\n
In a council of ministers meeting on Sunday, D\u00edaz-Canel called for \u201cimplementing the urgent, most necessary transformations that must be made to the economic and social model.\u201d To Cuba observers and people on the island, there was little in his speech that was new or signaled major economic reforms.<\/p>\n
The measures he mentioned \u2014 among them giving more autonomy to state enterprises and local governments \u2014 had been previously announced as part of a government plan that Cuban economists already deemed as insufficient to significantly overhaul the island\u2019s failing economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is repeating the same message, just at a higher frequency and with the volume dialed to 11, but is the same thing, with no plan and no implementation,\u201d said Ricardo Herrero, the executive director of the Washington-based Cuba Study Group.<\/p>\n
Justifying D\u00edaz-Canel\u2019s removal, a figure long despised among Cubans on the island, might not be that difficult, given Havana\u2019s long history in getting rid of members of the government deemed disloyal, corrupt or incompetent. Elsewhere in Communist bloc nations before the fall of the Soviet Union there were plenty of examples of party and government leaders suddenly being removed from their positions of authority.<\/p>\n
But a change in leadership in Cuba would be a major concession to the United States, experts say, especially given Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s keen interest in providing Cuba\u2019s communist government with apparent legitimacy in recent years by pushing through a new Constitution and several laws to strengthen institutional order.<\/p>\n
Dismissing D\u00edaz-Canel won\u2019t really \u201cremove the real foundations of power, but it\u2019s not a merely symbolic gesture\u201d either, said Armando Chaguaceda, a Cuban historian and political scientist who is a researcher at GAPAC, a Mexican think tank. \u201dIn these systems, even though we know that power is exercised harshly, symbols matter, and a certain veneer of legitimacy matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
If someone must be sacrificed to close a deal with Trump, \u201cclearly they won\u2019t sacrifice Ra\u00fal Castro,\u201d Chaguaceda said.<\/p>\n
A change in Cuba\u2019s top leadership will likely be well received by Cuban exiles, but might not be enough for many who would like to see Trump prioritize political changes and a transition to democracy in U.S. negotiations with Cuba.<\/p>\n
Cuban American activists, lawyers, economists and business owners have shared with the Herald in recent days a sense of unease about the administration\u2019s goals in dealing with Cuba. Many worry that the Trump administration might settle for leaving a member of the Castro family running the country, or leave GAESA, the vast military conglomerate that controls most of the country\u2019s economy, intact.<\/p>\n
Cuban exile organizations and the three Republican members of Congress from Miami have recently called for the indictment of Ra\u00fal Castro for the 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes belonging to the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue group.<\/p>\n
On Monday, several organizations of Cuban exiles and Cubans on the island who oppose the current government unveiled a plan for a democratic transition in Cuba that calls for the dismantling of Cuba\u2019s Communist Party.<\/p>\n
As expectations for regime change in Cuba grows, there\u2019s also a chance D\u00edaz-Canel might remain in his current roles after all.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a fuse, something that can be blown if it affects the survival of the system,\u201d Chaguaceda said, but compared him to a buoy, who somehow manages to stay afloat:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has survived many things.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 5:30 AM.<\/p>\n
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