Will there be regime change in Cuba in 2026?
It depends on the US.
One of the top questions I’ve received over the past week is whether Cuba’s government is stable or if 2026 is the year that it finally falls. The country’s economy is struggling. There are regular blackouts due to the lack of oil, a problem exacerbated by the fall of Maduro and by the US policy of halting new oil shipments. And after the events in Venezuela and the recent massive protests in Iran, there is a general sense that we’re potentially in a year of revolutionary change, so why not Cuba?
Both Marco Rubio and Donald Trump have offered vague warnings about Cuba potentially being next on their list of their targets. However, their threats are far more ambiguous than they were in Venezuela/Maduro, and their list of reasons is not as well-explained (they would insist the reasons appear quite similar to the Venezuela case, but they haven’t laid them all out in the same detail).
Reuters reports that a recent assessment by the US intelligence community was not overly optimistic on the potential that economic malaise would lead to the Cuban regime’s downfall. Also see recent articles in the WSJ and Atlantic.
The odds that Diaz Canel is forced out before the end of the year are 65% on Polymarket and close to a coin flip on Kalshi. So if you are among those who think there is no chance Cuba’s government will change on short notice, there is a lot of money to be made on that prediction. The crowd thinks that some change is likely.
I’m not going to offer a specific numerical prediction in this post, but I'll write out my thoughts on the question and how I’m thinking about potential regime stability predictions.
Key points:
Cuba’s government is very unlikely to fall on its own due to internal tensions or limited economic pressure from the outside.
The key variable is what the US decides to do. The US has the ability to push out Diaz-Canel and the entire Cuban dictatorship, but it would be a big commitment without a guarantee that what comes next would be good for the US.
There is essentially no quick transition scenario in which democracy is restored in 2026. The infrastructure and opposition organization do not exist. That means any change in leadership or regime will result in a less-than-democratic outcome in the short term.
Diaz-Canel is not the regime. As we’ve seen from the situation in Venezuela, a top leader can fall while the dictatorship survives in a different form (though the Cuban situation would look different from the Venezuelan one if Diaz-Canel were magically snapped into a prison). The questions about the current leader and the overall regime are distinct.
Will Cuba’s economic collapse force regime change?
If you bet on the Cuban government falling at any point in the past 60 years, you lost every year. If you bet across 80 years, you won twice (1952 and 1959). If you bet over 100 years, you’d have won at least three times and maybe more (the 1930s were complicated). (Edit: Corrected the wording in this paragraph)
That is a low base rate for change. In a world where stability leads to stability and coups lead to more coups, trying to predict a Cuban government collapse is always going to be difficult because you’re betting on something happening that hasn’t happened in over six decades.
Beyond the base rate, let me offer a bunch of reasons why the regime is stable, and it’s a bad idea to bet on the Cuban dictatorship falling:
Opponents of the regime are not allowed to participate in the pro-forma elections.
The regime has “coup-proofed” itself, avoiding splits in the civilian and military leadership.
With billions stolen and invested in various locations, there are enormous economic incentives for the current leadership not to give up power.
Repression of the population is successful.
Protest movements have failed multiple times before.
There is no serious nonviolent opposition movement or leader with widespread public support.
There is no hint of an armed guerrilla movement or insurgency in the country.
There is a large intelligence apparatus that closely monitors any efforts to build an opposition.
The Cuban regime has been successful in finding international allies to help them.
China is building serious intelligence infrastructure in Cuba and has a stake in the regime’s survival so it can maintain those sites close to the US. (Russia cares too, but Russia has few ways to help at the moment).
They have survived numerous pressure campaigns before, including decades of sanctions, covert operations, and, at the other end of the spectrum, US efforts to negotiate under President Obama.
They have also survived several moments of serious economic instability before, including the immediate post-Cold War era and Covid. The current situation is bad, but not necessarily worse than those two moments.
That list helps explain why previous Cuban crises have produced suffering, repression, and migration, but not elite fracture and regime change. The combination of the base rate and the list above explains why stability would be a better bet than change.
Is “nothing ever happens” always the best bet?
One challenge in doing a geopolitical prediction on something like Cuban regime change is that it is almost always a long shot to predict that a rare event will occur this year. And yet, eventually there will be a year in which that rare event occurs. Attempt to do it accurately, and you’ll always look like a fool. Predict that an event is 5% or 10% likely, and you’ll spend years of people asking you why you’re so high on an unlikely prediction, followed by people asking why the prediction was too low in the year that it finally occurs. But maybe 5% or 10% was the correct answer the whole time.
Some day, the Cuban regime will collapse. Once it happens, everyone will be able to swiftly point to the reasons that it was obvious in hindsight. Until it happens, my list above discussing reasons the regime is stable will remain the obviously correct answer. The analytical challenge is identifying signals for which year instability finally overwhelms resilience, making those predictions about rare outcomes slightly more accurate.
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Diaz-Canel is powerful, but he’s not the regime.
Miguel Diaz-Canel is not just a puppet or a figurehead. He’s a powerful leader who runs the civilian and military institutions. His preferred policy direction is the one the country follows.
However, there are limits and constraints on his power and other stakeholders who can determine the future of the country. Cuba is not a personalist dictatorship run by a single person. It’s a regime defined by a coalition of the military, Communist Party, and corrupt elite. Raul Castro is still alive and the Castro family has enormous influence in the government. The island’s military leaders control most of the weapons, as well as many of the businesses and economic sectors on which the country’s economy relies.
These other forces in Cuba, along with Rubio’s preference for a high-profile change, likely limit Diaz-Canel’s ability to negotiate and cut a deal with the Trump administration.
Diaz-Canel could be forced out, and someone else could take his place. Importantly, that hypothetical replacement doesn’t need to be moderate in the sense of the ideological spectrum or their openness to an eventual transition. They just need to be transactional and willing to work with Trump and Rubio in the same way Delcy Rodriguez is.
How does change come to Cuba?
One way to approach the question is to imagine all the possible ways change could come to Cuba over the coming decades, then figure out the odds of one of those scenarios occurring this year or this decade. Start with a list of the scenarios of a full “regime change” in which the current system changes dramatically.
Sudden collapse due to popular revolt - Protests over the economy finally boil over and force the government out.
Coup - Some military general takes over and installs a new regime.
Insurgency - It worked for Fidel and Che, but no sign of it now.
International intervention - Some country (probably the US) intervenes and forces out the ruling powers.
Negotiated transition - Under pressure, the Cuban regime agrees to free and fair elections and a handoff of power to the winner of those elections in a short time period.
The slow decline - I think of this like the PRI in Mexico, where the country gradually democratized from the stolen Salinas election in 1988 to the eventual opposition victory in 2000. Instead of a single election process, it took more than a decade and several election cycles before the ruling party left power.
Add to the list above a list of ways that Diaz-Canel could be forced out while the current regime remains in place.
Slow managed transition within the Communist Party - This is how it’s done in Cuba up to now and is supposed to continue.
Resigns - Diaz-Canel could resign and walk away, either because of a deal with someone else or because he’s simply done dealing with this mess.
Death in office - He could die due to illness, an accident, or “an accident.”
Palace coup - It’s not unthinkable that Diaz-Canel is detained on corruption charges, imprisoned, and replaced by someone else within the regime.
US raid - Maduro style.
Some of the options above could occur suddenly this year, while others are the result of long processes. Of the scenarios above, international intervention or an elite-driven palace coup are the most likely to suddenly occur this year. The rest are more likely to come with a longer process and more signals ahead of time.
Could the US force out Diaz-Canel?
The US has wanted the Cuban regime gone since the early days of the Fidel Castro government, but never really tried. Sure, there was a mini-operation in the Bay of Pigs that the US failed to support. Then the US tried with decades of sanctions, hundreds of covert operations, and millions in assistance to democracy promotion. By “really tried,” however, I mean that the US has never put the full force of the US military into tossing out the Cuban dictatorship.
Polymarket is currently offering 25% odds that the US will militarily strike Cuba this year. That is shockingly high in terms of recent decades, but reflects what the market thinks about the current US military moves in the region.
Like pretty much everywhere else, militarily forcing a regime change is easy for the US; stabilizing the situation afterward into something positive is incredibly difficult (a key reason not to just go around tossing out regimes we don’t like everywhere). The resource requirements to stabilize and nation build after an initial military operation are intense. The US has limited bandwidth and many issues to address in a complicated world.
As shown by the Maduro raid, there are military options that do not require a full-scale occupation. But those options provide far less influence in the immediate aftermath. The US needs a willing partner to take Diaz-Canel’s place if it’s going to shake up things.
What makes the current moment different is the US’s willingness (and perhaps eagerness) to use military force in the hemisphere. That is part of the Trump administration’s desire to shape outcomes in the neighborhood and expand US territory. If it wants to control Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Venezuelan oil, then it almost certainly wants greater control over an island 90 miles off the coast.
Any prediction about Cuba’s stability is more a prediction about US actions this year than anything related to Cuba’s domestic economic or political situation. This is largely about what Trump decides to do and how the Cuban regime responds to his threats. The signals from Washington - particularly any military movements in the Caribbean that suggest operations targeting Cuba or public statements from Rubio about specific and realistic demands - are the key indicators to watch.
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