Will Donald Trump turn Cuba into the next Venezuela?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 747 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US President Donald Trump is tightening the screws on Cuba, with an indictment against former Cuban President Raul Castro and military threats that echo Washington’s playbook in Venezuela. But after surviving decades of US pressure, Cuba is preparing. As blackouts spread and tensions rise, is this just political theater, or the beginning of a major confrontation?
In this episode:
- Lucia Newman (@lucianewman), Al Jazeera Senior Latin America Correspondent
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé and Sarí el-Khalili with Catherine Nouhan and our guest host, Tamara Khandaker. It was edited by Alexandra Locke.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, is this the calm before the storm in Cuba? |
| 0:15.9 | The pressure that the Cuban people and the Cuban government are under right now is unprecedented. |
| 0:22.5 | Trump has been turning up the pressure on Cuba, with an indictment, a military buildup, |
| 0:28.1 | and a public threat that he could be the U.S. president to act. So what's next for the island? |
| 0:35.7 | I'm Tamara Kondokar, and this is The Take. |
| 0:46.3 | I'm Lucia Newman. I'm a senior Latin American correspondent and editor for Al Jazeera English based in Santiago, Chile. |
| 0:54.1 | Lucia, welcome back to the take. |
| 0:55.7 | It's really, really great to talk to you about Cuba, which we've been wanting to talk about for a while. |
| 1:01.6 | So towards the end of last week, it felt like maybe we were on the edge of something. |
| 1:07.7 | On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump telling reporters it looks like he will be |
| 1:13.6 | the first president to intervene in Cuba. |
| 1:16.6 | Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something, and it looks like |
| 1:22.7 | I'll be the one that does it. |
| 1:24.6 | Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Cuba's a national security threat. |
| 1:29.1 | There was also the indictment of former President Raul Castro, which we'll get into in a bit. |
| 1:34.0 | But since then, things have gone a bit quiet. |
| 1:37.3 | So I'm just wondering how you're reading this, have things cooled off, or is this maybe the calm before the storm? |
| 1:45.1 | I would definitely say the latter, although it's probably not very calm, |
| 1:48.6 | usually when you don't hear anything after statements like that, |
| 1:52.2 | you can imagine that there are a lot of conversations taking place behind the scenes, |
| 1:56.7 | people going back and forth. |
... |
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