Cuba

Cuba tried to improve its relations with the US by cooperating with Trump’s deportation flights. It didn’t work.

Author: Editors Desk Source: Politico

June 2, 2025 at 20:55

Trump administration officials and members of the Cuban exile community have pushed for a tougher line on Cuban leadership, arguing that the communist government represents a major national security threat. | Ramon Espinosa/AP

Cuba has taken five deportation flights since Trump took office, but the administration appears disinterested in improving relations with Havana.

Countries throughout the Western Hemisphere and Africa are finding ways to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s eagerness to thwart migration. But it’s not working for Cuba.

Even as Cuba continues to accept its citizens deported from the U.S., the island nation finds itself increasingly at odds with the Trump administration, a senior Cuban official told POLITICO.

The deterioration in relations between Havana and Washington comes as Trump administration officials and members of the Cuban exile community have pushed for a tougher line on Cuban leadership, arguing that the communist government represents a major national security threat. The U.S. is also facing a wave of migration from Cuba that has seen hundreds of thousands of Cubans enter the country since the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an exclusive interview, Johana Tablada, one of the top Cuban officials in the country’s foreign ministry that works on relations with Washington, said that the bilateral relationship is currently “at zero” and that “the State Department is not interested in having conversations with Cuba that have existed” even when both sides were most at odds in the past.

She added that under President Donald Trump, she and Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio have been snubbed by the State Department when they visited Washington — a change from past administrations, where Cuban officials were at least granted meetings with their U.S. counterparts.

The icy attitude from the Trump administration is surprising, per Tablada, given that Cuba proposed further dialogue with the United States on migration and has continued upholding a 2017 agreement between both countries allowing for deportation flights of Cuban nationals back to the island. Since Trump returned to the White House, Cuba has accepted five deportation flights.

Tablada’s comments suggest that caving to the Trump administration’s anti-migration efforts in exchange for goodwill elsewhere has its limits.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, backed by former special envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone, has especially pushed for a tough line on Cuba. Claver-Carone said in February that the administration had “very creative” policy options at its disposal to induce the collapse of Cuba’s communist government, long a dream of many in Miami’s Cuban exile community.

The Trump administration restored Cuba in January to a list of state sponsors of terrorism and reinstated a barrage of other sanctions lifted at the end of the Biden administration. A new State Department policy has also threatened visa restrictions on government officials in Cuba and other countries found to be responsible for labor rights abuses against Cuban doctors on state-sponsored medical missions around the world — a major source of income for the Cuban government.

Tablada blames the impasse in relations on those who advocate for maximum pressure on Cuba within the U.S. government. She denied allegations that Cuba mistreats doctors on medical missions or supports terrorist groups around the world. Tablada accused Rubio and others of stoking tensions to justify further reprisals.

“They’re doing everything possible to blow up what’s left of the relationship and the adult in the room is the Cuban government,” argued Tablada. “If we did what they wanted, we’d be giving a pretext for those people who want to break off relations, create a migration crisis and prompt a military intervention from the United States.”

The State Department and the White House National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Despite the headwinds, Tablada says Cuba remains undeterred in its effort to build strong ties with the American people. “We’re going to continue cultivating our relations with the United States, which have a long history and have been neighborly and reciprocal,” she said.