Greetings and welcome to the Friday, March the 13th, 2026 edition of the Daily Article Podcast from Denison Forum.

Senior Editor for Theology, Dr. Ryan Dennison, wrote today's daily article.

I'm Chris Elkins, narrator.

While the Trump administration's focus remains largely on the war in Iran, the president took time earlier this week to address the situation with Cuba as well.

Hinting that they may be next in line for regime change, he stated, it may be a friendly takeover.

It may not be a friendly takeover.

It wouldn't matter because they're

really, they're down to, as I say, fumes. Trump went on to add, they have no energy, they have no

money. They're in deep trouble on a humanitarian basis, end quote. As I discussed in the

Newsworth Knowing section of this week's focus, those comments came after he'd previously mused they want to make a deal.

And so I'm going to put Marco over there and we'll see how that works out.

As we've seen with Iran, Russia, and Ukraine, Venezuela, and a host of other conflicts, waiting to make a deal

and being willing to give up what it would take to get a deal are rarely the same.

And while the president is correct that Cuba is struggling in almost every way, it still is

unclear what any such negotiations would entail. Cuba does not have a clear successor

who could take over, like in Venezuela. They also don't have the same kind of economic or natural

resources that could prove appealing. Instead, it's likely that any concessions of interest to the

administration would center around the country's

relationship with Russia and China. A report from the Center for Strategic and International

Studies found that there are likely multiple sites on the island of Cuba that China is currently

using to spy on the United States. Russia is also thought to use Cuba and other Latin American

countries like Nicaragua for similar purposes. Reducing our neighbor nation's ties to these

...