Cuba is not a victim; it's a criminal state

Dear all,

We welcome you to the Greater Caribbean Monitor (GCaM).

The Department of State has brought us a marvelous 100-page “brief” that compiles years of intelligence on Cuba's impact throughout the Americas. The message Rubio wanted to signal is clear: Cuba is not a victim, but rather the main source of anti-Americanism in the hemisphere. It is a very intriguing document that basically shows Cuba has never been a hopeless island impoverished by American sanctions. Instead, it evidences that it is an enemy state that has starved its population to make millionaires out of revolutionaries, while using the country as a platform to rot America from within, as well as its neighbors.

What's interesting is publishing such a piece of intelligence now, 66 years after this venom started poisoning the well in the Americas. And to avoid spoiling what you will read in the newsletter, I will not reveal our analysis just yet, but I will give you a hint: the midterms are near. And it is not the only election on the horizon; Brazil is also facing elections, and the U.S. is also very close to the process. It seems, however, that Trump's interests in the Bolsonaros returning might be overrun by the effects of the tariffs. But remember, polls are often wrong and underrepresent conservative votes. It will all be decided soon, however. But enough introductions; we invite you to read us.

In this issue, you will find:

• The Ultimate Justification to Overthrow the Cuban Regime

• How Much Has America Drifted Away from the Founding Fathers?

• Friendly Fire: US Tariffs Weaken Bolsonaro’s Possibilities

As always, please feel free to share GCaM with your friends and colleagues. We all, at the GCaM team, wish you a good weekend.

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For decades, Cuba has been portrayed internationally as the victim of American sanctions. A new State Department report attempts to turn that narrative on its head, recasting Havana not as an isolated dictatorship but as one of the Western Hemisphere’s most persistent intelligence and influence operations.

In perspective. The timing raises an obvious question: why now? For more than six decades, Washington has never needed to convince Americans that Cuba is a dictatorship. That has never been the issue. So why publish one of the most comprehensive government reports ever assembled on Havana’s espionage networks, propaganda apparatus and political influence operations? The answer lies less in what the report says than in what it seeks to accomplish.

• Rather than documenting communist repression—something already well established—the State Department appears intent on fundamentally changing how policymakers and the public understand Cuba itself.

• Instead of a poor island trapped by sanctions, the report presents Havana as a hostile intelligence actor that has spent decades conducting espionage against the United States while exporting anti-American ideology throughout the Western Hemisphere.

• The report argues that Cuba developed one of the most effective intelligence services ever fielded by a small state, highlighting cases such as Ana Belén Montes and Víctor Manuel Rocha as evidence of a long-term strategy to penetrate U.S. national security institutions rather than isolated espionage successes.

How it works. It also documents decades of political influence operations extending well beyond intelligence gathering, describing an international network dedicated to propaganda, ideological mobilization, activist coordination and political influence inside both Latin America and the United States.

• Perhaps most significantly, the report portrays anti-Americanism not as a spontaneous political sentiment across Latin America.

• It shows it's the product of a deliberate and sustained strategy in which Havana trained revolutionaries, supported insurgencies, cultivated solidarity organizations and institutionalized hostility toward Washington across generations of left-wing political movements.

Between the lines. The report is doing something previous U.S. government publications rarely attempted: replacing the moral framework through which Cuba has been understood. For decades, Havana successfully occupied the role of victim. International debate centered on sanctions, shortages and humanitarian hardship. The regime’s external activities—its intelligence operations, ideological warfare and political interference—were often shamelessly treated as secondary. This document reverses that hierarchy.

• Rather than asking why Cuba has suffered under U.S. policy, the report asks why the United States has tolerated, for more than sixty years, a hostile intelligence platform operating just ninety miles from Florida.

• It reframes Cuba’s greatest export not as doctors or even revolution, but as political influence. According to the report, Havana invested decades building networks capable of shaping narratives, training political cadres and amplifying anti-American sentiment throughout the hemisphere.

• That directly challenges one of the defining assumptions of post-Cold War discourse: that Cuba represents primarily a humanitarian concern rather than an active national security threat.

Why it matters. Governments rarely produce reports of this scale simply to document history. They publish them to shape future policy. If Cuba is understood principally as a dictatorship, policy debates revolve around democracy promotion and sanctions. But if it is understood as an active intelligence adversary conducting influence operations against the United States and its allies, an entirely different range of policy options becomes politically conceivable. The report shifts the conversation from human rights to national security.

• It encourages policymakers to evaluate Havana not by its economic weakness but by its capacity to project influence disproportionate to its size.

• Most importantly, it attempts to replace decades of strategic ambiguity with a much clearer conclusion: Cuba has not merely resisted the United States—it has actively worked to undermine it across the Western Hemisphere.

In conclusion. The most important question raised by this report is not whether its allegations are new. Many have circulated within intelligence circles for decades. The real question is why Washington has chosen to assemble them into a single, comprehensive government publication now. The report redefines Cuba from a humanitarian dilemma into a national security challenge. It replaces the image of Havana as a victim with that of a sophisticated hostile actor whose influence extends far beyond the island itself.

• And if that reframing gains traction in Washington, it may ultimately prove more consequential than any individual espionage case documented in its pages.

• Whether intentional or not, the document reads less like a retrospective account of Cuba’s past than as the intellectual foundation for a far more assertive U.S. policy toward Havana.

• Should the Trump administration eventually conclude that stronger measures are politically necessary—particularly as the 2026 midterms approach—the argument has already been written.

The United States entered its 250th anniversary more politically polarized than at any point in recent memory. The graph The Economist made for a YouGov survey shows it. Yet polarization alone tells only part of the story.

In perspective. The more revealing question is not whether Americans disagree, but how each political coalition relates to the principles upon which the republic was founded. The survey above suggests that while ideological distance exists across the political spectrum, it has not developed symmetrically. Republicans remain the group most likely to have preserved the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Democrats, by contrast, are overwhelmingly more likely to say their party has moved further away from those principles, with independents occupying an intermediate position.

• The data do not merely reveal polarization, they actually suggest an asymmetrical evolution in which the American left has undergone the most profound philosophical transformation over the past two and a half centuries.

• That conclusion is hardly surprising when one considers the nature of the country’s founding. The American Revolution was not simply a war for independence; it was a revolution grounded in a distinct political philosophy. The Declaration of Independence affirmed natural rights as inherent to every individual.

• The Constitution dispersed power through federalism and separation of powers. The Bill of Rights limited government while protecting individual liberty. Together, these documents reflected a profound distrust of concentrated authority and an enduring belief that government existed to secure pre-existing rights rather than create them.

Why it matters. Many of today’s political debates revolve around precisely those principles. Over the past century—and particularly in recent decades—the Democratic Party has increasingly embraced a vision of government that assigns the state a far broader role in economic management, social policy and cultural affairs. Questions that were once understood primarily through the lens of individual liberty are now more frequently approached through concepts such as equity, group identity and administrative governance.

• Whether one considers those changes necessary adaptations or ideological departures, they undeniably represent a significant shift from the classical liberal assumptions that animated America’s founding.

• The survey appears to capture that perception. A plurality of Democrats believe their party stands much further from the Founders’ ideals, while only a small minority believe it has moved closer.

• Republicans present almost the opposite pattern, with substantially more respondents understanding their party as aligned with the country’s original principles. Independents, meanwhile, reflect an electorate that recognizes change without fully embracing either narrative.

Yes, but. None of this implies that Republicans have perfectly preserved the Founders’ vision or that conservatives are immune from ideological change. American conservatism itself has evolved considerably, particularly in areas such as executive power, trade and foreign policy. Political traditions are never static, nor should they be expected to remain frozen in the eighteenth century. What the data do suggest, however, is that the center of gravity has shifted far more dramatically on the left than on the right.

• While both parties have changed over 250 years, the philosophical distance separating today’s Democratic Party from the Founding Fathers appears considerably greater than that separating modern Republicans from those same constitutional ideals.

• As America commemorates its semiquincentennial, perhaps the most important question is not whether the Founders would recognize today’s politics, but which political tradition still sees itself as their heir.

• The survey indicates that, in the eyes of the public, one side has preserved that inheritance more successfully than the other. Whether that perception proves politically durable may become one of the defining questions of America’s next 250 years.

Latin America’s largest economy has increasingly functioned as the principal geopolitical counterweight to US interests in the Western Hemisphere. In the volatile run-up to Brazil’s polarizing 2026 presidential election, Washington has deployed aggressive trade measures to exert direct economic pressure on the South American giant.

• This economic offensive attempts to leverage trade friction as a political instrument, testing the resilience of Brazil’s governing coalition while seeking to reassert US regional hegemony.

In perspective. The US Trade Representative has enacted a dual-track tariff framework featuring a 25% penalty under Section 301 alongside global baseline duties ranging from 10% to 12.5%. Targeting between USD 7.4B and USD 11B in Brazilian exports—representing roughly 18% to 26% of total US-bound trade—the levies hit industrial machinery, footwear, synthetic chemicals, and sugarcane ethanol while carving out key commodities such as commercial aircraft, critical minerals, coffee, and beef. This coercive trade policy collides directly with a tight presidential campaign between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and conservative Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

• Manufacturing hubs in São Paulo and southern Brazil bear the brunt of the 25% Section 301 duties, which severely compress margins across footwear, heavy machinery, and specialty chemicals.

• Washington deliberately carved out vital imports such as Embraer commercial jets, coffee, orange juice, and critical minerals to insulate US domestic supply chains from inflationary spikes.

• Intended to undermine Lula’s economic narrative, the trade penalties have backfired by allowing the administration to advance a narrative of perceived US electoral interference.

How it works. The selective architecture of Washington’s trade offensive creates a distinct geographical and political paradox, concentrating economic pressure directly on conservative strongholds. By imposing 25% Section 301 penalties on heavy machinery, light manufacturing, and ethanol while carving out major commodities such as beef, coffee, and commercial aircraft, the tariffs bypass broader consumer markets to hit the industrial and agricultural heartlands that form the electoral foundation of Senator Bolsonaro.

• Manufacturing hubs across São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina—the political core of the conservative opposition—bear the heaviest burden as footwear, machinery, and synthetic chemicals face severe margin squeezes.

• Center-West and southern agricultural regions face a bifurcated landscape, while coffee and protein exporters remain insulated through strategic exemptions. Furthermore, sugarcane ethanol, sugar, and timber producers suffer direct competitive losses in US markets.

• Intended to destabilize President Lula da Silva’s economic standing, the localized strain has placed direct pressure on pro-Bolsonaro business elites, ultimately compelling Bolsonaro to lobby Washington for a 180-day tariff suspension to avert political fallout among his own base.

Between the lines. Washington’s attempt to weaponize trade policy to influence Brazil’s election has miscalculated the regional balance of power. Rather than weakening the incumbent, President Lula has capitalized on a nationalistic sovereignty narrative that frames the trade penalties as illegitimate foreign electoral meddling, pushing the electoral margin increasingly out of Senator Bolsonaro’s reach. Meanwhile, the targeted economic friction disproportionately hits conservative industrial and agricultural strongholds rather than Lula’s core base while creating cost squeezes for US downstream buyers. This boomerang effect has even compelled Argentina’s Javier Milei—weakened by a domestic cabinet corruption scandal—to appear at the Liberal Party convention in Brazil in support of Bolsonaro.

• Alienating Brazil’s industrial and agribusiness sectors destabilizes Washington’s primary geopolitical pivot point in the Western Hemisphere, fracturing relations with the very domestic commercial elites necessary to maintain long-term US influence in South America.

• The self-inflicted economic drag on US downstream manufacturers yields zero offsetting political dividend, as the tariffs fail to secure the targeted electoral outcome while incurring a net loss in regional diplomatic leverage.

• Without a change in political alignment, Brazil is being pushed into a structural shift toward Chinese and BRICS+ value chains, turning a tactical trade spat into an increasingly permanent realignment of South American trade architecture.

In conclusion. The deployment of targeted trade penalties against Brazil demonstrates the clear limits of economic coercion within a multipolar global order. Far from engineering political capitulation, the policy has disrupted conservative electoral strongholds, imposed cost pressures on domestic US industries, and risked accelerating South America’s trade integration with non-Western markets.

• Washington now faces the risk of diminishing diplomatic leverage across Latin America while inadvertently cementing President Lula’s sovereignty narrative ahead of the 2026 presidential election.