U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio standing behind him, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 23, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
President Donald Trump is in a rock and hard place with a valuable Florida constituency, reports Politico.
Miami’s Cuban American community is keeping the heat on Trump to oust the regime in Cuba, but Republicans appear terrified of another war on the heels of a hotly unpopular attack on Iran, which has ballooned inflation and gas prices in time for the midterms.
“Cuban opposition activists, especially in South Florida, have been taking their uncompromising message public for months,” reports Politico. “This includes everything from holding prayer sessions to caravaning in the streets of Miami to signing a road map document called the ‘Freedom Accord,’ which set in stone their expectations for a transition to democracy. Working groups with members in South Florida and Cuba have been meeting for weeks to outline post-regime plans, like holding free and fair elections.”
Trump has already imposed an onerous energy blockade on Cuba and sanctions, and while administration officials have demanded some top Cuban officials would need to step down, the overall message they’ve sent is that all-out regime change may have to wait.
This is not enough for U.S.-Cuban Republicans who helped drive Trump to his second term.
“The Cuban exile community, which is my community, what we’re saying is there won’t be any real economic change until you have real political change,” said Orlando Gutíerrez-Boronat, secretary general for the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, a coalition of activist groups, which claims to speak for the Cuban American business community.
GOP state Sen. Ileana Garcia went a step further, warning that if the U.S. didn’t take military action or intervene in another way or have a plan that would “overthrow” the Cuban regime the Floria Cuban community would mark Trump’s future presidential library as an “eyesore” next to the Freedom Tower that was once a processing center for Cuban refugees.
But while the Miami Cuban community is champing at the bit for regime change, Trump’s wider Republican Party is busy trying to clamp down of U.S. migration, which Politico reports includes “preventing a migration crisis that could result if the regime in Cuba, which is just 90 miles off the Florida coast, were to suddenly vanish.”