Will Trump try the Venezuela method in Cuba?

I’m wondering whether the Cuban government is presently angling for some sort of Delcy Rodríguez-like arrangement with the Trump Administration. There has been some reporting that Havana has approached Pope Leo XIV to act as an interlocutor between the U.S. and Cuba.

It is unclear at this time what role the current Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is playing in any ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the two sides. He could well be marginalized and pushed to the side. Most of the focus appears to be on those Cuban officials who are close to former president Raúl Castro.

In fact, it was widely reported that Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, had recently met privately on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts with American officials from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s inner circle. It is still unknown if any substantial progress was made, but the secretive talks are said to be continuing.

Additionally, there are credible reports that high-level discussions are taking place between senior Trump administration officials and the small coterie of advisers associated with Raúl Castro. In the words of Florida Republican House member and Cuba hardliner Mario Díaz-Balart: “There have been conversations with multiple people around Raúl Castro, basically with everyone around Raúl, at the highest level, but they aren’t negotiations.”

Interestingly, there were also meetings with U.S. emissaries and Cuba’s deputy foreign minister Josefina Vidal, who played a pivotal role in negotiating the 2014 Barack Obama-Raúl Castro diplomatic entente. One could reasonably assume that if Vidal is at the table that these exchanges are more substantive than just exploratory discussions.

In any bilateral negotiations, President Trump has made it very clear that he wants meaningful economic and political changes in Cuba. It’s highly unlikely, though, that the Cuban political leadership will be interested in going down such a path. But they might be open to the “Venezuelan model,” especially if a modified version is put on the table (e.g., permitting Cuban-Americans to own private businesses in Cuba).

You may recall that the kidnapping of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was replaced on an interim basis by one of his top lieutenants — that is, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. Many of the same faces of the previous government, including President of the National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Government Ombudsperson Tarek William Saab, are still hanging around. In effect, the key politicos in the Maduro government are now the main players in the Rodríguez government.

Rodríguez does have periodic conversations with U.S. officials in Caracas and Washington and basically goes about her business. However, it’s hard to know who precisely is calling the shots or whether this governing structure is some form of governmental co-habitation. The reality is that all the elements of the previous government that were so objectionable to a large swathe of the Venezuelan population and to many foreign governments are still firmly in place.

Somewhat surprising, neither side is talking seriously about democratic transition or likely presidential elections down the road. Indeed, it’s pretty obvious that Trump has little or no interest in holding democratic elections or advancing greater political freedoms in Venezuela. That means that the rightful Venezuelan president, Edmundo González Urrutia, and his confidante and Nobel laureate, María Corina Machado, have both been unceremoniously kicked to the curb.

Economically speaking, it is hard to tell that much has changed on the ground in Venezuela either. The one exception would be in the crucial energy sector, where the U.S. is extracting a generous share of Venezuelan oil exports (undoubtedly at discounted prices). And it is still too early to know whether a slew of American oil companies are set to return to the inefficiently-run petrostate.

But if the Maduro-lite Rodríguez government is permitted to remain in power, I’m sure that they can live with any extortionist oil deal with Trump. The true test will come when one side or the other decides to challenge the terms of the arrangement and push for greater hands-on control and power. It will most likely take some time, though, before that fateful bridge is actually crossed.

It’s hard to say, of course, whether Havana would be open to such a similar deal because of Cuba’s “black box” decision-making process. But you would have to think that they would seriously consider it — if only to improve the humanitarian situation and to relieve some of the domestic discontent. Much would undoubtedly depend on who exactly in Cuba would be Washington’s “Delcy Rodríguez.”

Clearly, there is much that we don’t know about the inside deals that Venezuela has concluded, and that Cuba is now considering. One hopes that whatever happens, though, the suffering and daily struggles in both Venezuela and Cuba will be mitigated.

Having said that, any tentative arrangements with the U.S. could quickly go sideways at any time. But they could also prove to be more stable and long-lasting than one might expect. We just don’t know.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.