CSPAN - Washington Journal William LeoGrande
Aired: 2026-03-23
Duration: 19:59


=== Democracy and Hope in Cuba (04:26) ===

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[00:00:57]  Welcome back.
[00:00:58]  Joining us now to talk about recent and potential U.S. actions against Cuba is William Leo Grand.
[00:01:04]  He's a government professor at American University.
[00:01:07]  Professor, welcome to the program.
[00:01:09]  Thanks for having me on.
[00:01:10]  So I want to start with this article from the Associated Press with the headline, Concern, Anger, and Hope Simmer in Cuba after Trump calls for imminent action against the government.
[00:01:22]  Where do things stand right now between Cuba and the U.S.?
[00:01:25]  Well, they're at a very tense moment right now.
[00:01:30]  President Trump has been saying really for about a month now that he sees Cuba as next on his list of dealing with adversary states.
[00:01:44]  Venezuela first, now Iran.
[00:01:46]  He said that he hopes he's going to have the honor of taking Cuba.
[00:01:51]  He didn't say exactly what he meant by that, but it's clear that both he and Marco Rubio are committed to some kind of fundamental change in Cuba.
[00:02:02]  We know that Cuba and the United States have been talking with one another.
[00:02:06]  We don't know exactly what the agenda of those talks are.
[00:02:10]  The U.S. began a blockade of oil coming into Cuba earlier this year.
[00:02:15]  Why?
[00:02:17]  Cuba is very dependent on imported oil.
[00:02:20]  They only produce about 40% of their consumption, and they were getting a lot of that from Venezuela.
[00:02:27]  That, of course, stopped after the United States went into Venezuela, abducted the president of Venezuela, and then cut off the Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba.
[00:02:37]  And then at the end of January, the president signed an executive order that warned we would impose tariffs on any other country in the world that dared ship oil to Cuba.
[00:02:51]  And no one has.
[00:02:52]  That executive order was actually rescinded because it relied on the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which the Supreme Court said was unconstitutional.
[00:03:04]  But the threat of some kind of U.S. sanctions has deterred other countries from actually trying to send Cuba oil.
[00:03:11]  So they only have a couple of weeks of oil left for the entire country.
[00:03:16]  And so we've heard about widespread blackouts happening.
[00:03:20]  What's going on on the streets of Cuba?
[00:03:24]  It's a desperate situation.
[00:03:26]  The government has actually been short of fuel for a while, but now it's running out completely.
[00:03:32]  And that means that there's no electricity because 80% of Cuba's electricity is produced by thermoelectric plants that run on oil.
[00:03:43]  It also means for a lot of people there's no water because when the electricity goes out, the electrical power pumps that pump the oil up to upper floors in buildings don't work.
[00:03:56]  It means that hospitals can't do surgeries and so on.
[00:03:59]  A modern economy just can't run without energy.
[00:04:03]  If you've got a question for Professor Leo Grand on Cuba, you can start giving us a call now.
[00:04:09]  The lines are bipartisan, so Democrats are on 202, 748, 8000.
[00:04:13]  Republicans 202, 748, 8001, and Independents 202, 748, 8002.
[00:04:20]  What would you say is the U.S. strategic objective of this oil blockade?
[00:04:25]  What are they trying to accomplish?

=== Risk of War Over Embargo (15:32) ===

[00:04:26]  I think that the strategy is to do enough damage to the Cuban economy that the government will effectively surrender to whatever terms the Trump administration has put forward in these negotiations that we know are underway.
[00:04:43]  It's a risky strategy because if the government doesn't agree to terms that President Trump finds acceptable, the risk is that the whole economy could collapse and you could have real social unrest on the island.
[00:04:58]  Historically, when the Cuban economy has done very, very badly, Cubans have migrated to the United States.
[00:05:06]  That's happened three or four times in the past, and there's a risk it could happen again.
[00:05:10]  I want to play you a short segment of Cuba's deputy foreign minister, and he was on the Sunday shows yesterday.
[00:05:19]  I'm going to play it, and then you can respond.
[00:05:21]  Very good.
[00:05:22]  Is your military preparing for a potential engagement with the United States?
[00:05:28]  Our military is always prepared, and in fact, it is preparing these days for the possibility of military aggression.
[00:05:37]  We would be naive if looking at what's happening around the world, we would not do that.
[00:05:42]  But we truly hope that it doesn't occur.
[00:05:45]  We don't see why it would have to occur, and we find no justification whatsoever.
[00:05:50]  Why would the government, the United States, force its country to take military action against a neighboring country like Cuba?
[00:05:57]  What's the condition of Cuba's military?
[00:06:00]  Well, it's not in very strong position.
[00:06:03]  It really is more of a territorial defense force than anything else.
[00:06:07]  It doesn't really have any off-island capability.
[00:06:10]  It doesn't have air defenses that could stand up to a U.S. attack.
[00:06:15]  It really, in that sense, is defenseless if the United States wanted to go in and occupy the island.
[00:06:21]  But the Cubans' military doctrine is not to try to defend airports, seaports, cities against the U.S. invasion.
[00:06:29]  It's for the entire armed forces to essentially melt back into the population and fight a guerrilla war over time.
[00:06:36]  And they've pre-positioned supplies to do that.
[00:06:38]  That's been true ever since the 1980s when Ronald Reagan first threatened military action against Cuba.
[00:06:44]  Well, let's do some history because there's been an economic embargo on Cuba since the 1960s.
[00:06:50]  Tell us why.
[00:06:51]  Why did all this happen?
[00:06:53]  Well, it happened, of course, because in 1959, Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista's military dictatorship.
[00:07:00]  Batista had been a friend of the United States since the 1930s.
[00:07:03]  And it didn't take long before Castro's revolution moved to the left, and the United States decided that the continued existence of this regime was contrary to U.S. national interest.
[00:07:15]  And so we had, of course, the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was one of the first efforts to overthrow this government.
[00:07:20]  And when that didn't work, President Kennedy imposed a complete embargo on the island.
[00:07:25]  That meant, and means today, that nobody subject to U.S. jurisdiction can engage in any kind of transaction with Cuba unless the president has given permission through a license.
[00:07:39]  So people can travel to Cuba because there are licenses that the president has approved that allow it.
[00:07:44]  But we have virtually no economic relationship with Cuba other than the export to Cuba of agricultural goods because the Congress wrote that into law in 2000.
[00:07:55]  How likely is it that the regime in Cuba would voluntarily step down as a result of this economic pressure?
[00:08:04]  I think it's very unlikely.
[00:08:06]  The Cuban government has said repeatedly, the president said just recently, the Cuban president said just recently that Cuba's form of government and the personnel in it are not up for negotiation.
[00:08:19]  And the Vice Foreign Minister repeated that on the Sunday shows.
[00:08:23]  That the leader of Cuba, the president, would not step down.
[00:08:27]  The president will not, well, that none of Cuba's leadership or its structure of government was subject to negotiation with the United States.
[00:08:34]  All right, let's talk to callers and bring in Howard first in Michigan, Independent Line.
[00:08:39]  Good morning, Howard.
[00:08:42]  Yeah, I have one quick question about Cuba.
[00:08:47]  What would be the possibility of the current Cuban government giving in to political tensions and the possibility of Cuba becoming a, like Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory?
[00:09:06]  That's all I have to say.
[00:09:07]  Thank you, and I enjoy your independent broadcasting.
[00:09:13]  Thanks.
[00:09:14]  Thanks, Howard.
[00:09:15]  Well, you know, Cuba became independent as a result of the Spanish-American War in 1898, and that's when Puerto Rico became a U.S. possession.
[00:09:26]  And the Cubans are very proud of their national sovereignty.
[00:09:29]  They're a very nationalistic people.
[00:09:32]  And so the idea that they would agree to become a U.S. possession, I think, is very, very unlikely.
[00:09:39]  But what's interesting in Cuba these days is that Cuba is changing, particularly on the economic front.
[00:09:45]  They inherited a centrally planned economy from the Soviet Union that didn't work.
[00:09:51]  And for the last decade or so, they've been trying to move away from that and more toward a kind of market economy on the model of either Vietnam or China.
[00:10:02]  So we've talked about the sticks.
[00:10:04]  What if we used carrots?
[00:10:05]  What if all economic sanctions and embargoes were lifted on Cuba?
[00:10:11]  Would we have more influence over their government and having a friendlier government in Cuba?
[00:10:18]  Well, I think we would.
[00:10:20]  This is a strategy that President Obama tried beginning in 2014 when he and Raul Castro agreed to normalize diplomatic relations and try to move toward a more normal relationship overall.
[00:10:34]  And President Obama licensed a lot of new transactions with Cuba, economic transactions with Cuba.
[00:10:41]  He liberalized trade so that more Americans could travel to Cuba and more Cubans could come to the United States.
[00:10:48]  And in the space of just two years, the two countries were able to sign 22 bilateral agreements on a range of issues of mutual interest, everything ranging from law enforcement, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, environmental protection, public health.
[00:11:04]  So it seems to me that the progress that was made in just those two years of trying to improve the relationship, we got more out of it and the Cubans got more out of it than this 50-some-odd years of embargo that preceded it.
[00:11:19]  Carol in St. Mary's, Georgia, Democrat, you're on the air.
[00:11:23]  Yes, I'm a first-time caller and I appreciate you taking my call.
[00:11:29]  I read that there's a Russian oil tanker going towards Cuba as we speak, supposedly arriving tonight.
[00:11:38]  I was wondering if that is true and if so, what do you think the ramifications will be?
[00:11:47]  Yes, so the Russians have always been a supplier in modest amounts of oil to Cuba.
[00:11:54]  And when President Trump just the other day lifted the or waived sanctions on Russian oil to increase global supply in the middle of the war with Iran, two Russian tankers actually set out for Cuba.
[00:12:10]  One of them is a shadow fleet tanker, which is to say it's not registered properly, I guess, would be the way to put it.
[00:12:17]  And the President Trump's response was to say, well, Cuba is exempted from this waiver.
[00:12:25]  Russian oil cannot go to Cuba.
[00:12:27]  And the ship, the vessel from the shadow fleet turned around, but the second vessel is on its way to Cuba still, and it's going to be very interesting to see if the United States Navy tries to intercept this Russian vessel on its way to provide oil to Cuba.
[00:12:46]  A sort of mini-Cuban missile crisis, if you will.
[00:12:49]  When is it supposed to actually approach?
[00:12:52]  Within the next couple of days.
[00:12:54]  So the Miami Herald is reporting that U.S. says Cuba can't buy Russian oil just as a tanker approaches the island.
[00:13:04]  I guess that would have to be enforced militarily.
[00:13:07]  It would.
[00:13:08]  It would.
[00:13:10]  And that's obviously potentially a dangerous thing.
[00:13:14]  I don't think Russia is going to go to war with the United States over it.
[00:13:18]  But to intercept a vessel of another country and blockade a country is technically an act of war.
[00:13:26]  Let's talk to Frank, Montgomery Village on the independent line.
[00:13:30]  Go ahead, Frank.
[00:13:32]  Hey, how are you?
[00:13:32]  First of all, I appreciate everything he just said, honestly.
[00:13:36]  I've been to Cuba probably 60 times over the last 10 years, and I want to ask him, would you agree that them having no oil for power, as I've seen down there, I was there recently,
[00:13:50]  as within the last month, is it an act of war for America to blockade that oil knowing that there's no power for ambulances, medical equipment, life support equipment, food, refrigeration, et cetera?
[00:14:07]  Is that an act of war or even possible signs of a genocide that we're enforcing on Cuba?
[00:14:14]  Well, as I said, if we stop a foreign vessel that has a legitimate right to be going to Cuba and blockade the island, that is, in fact, technically an act of war.
[00:14:26]  This is why President Kennedy called his blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis a quarantine rather than a blockade.
[00:14:36]  That was really semantics, but he understood the risks involved in imposing a naval blockade.
[00:14:47]  The impact that this is having on the Cuban people is absolutely disastrous.
[00:14:53]  I was there in December, and I'm in touch with people on the island almost every day, and the situation is just deteriorating day after day.
[00:15:03]  They just suffered a nationwide power outage just the other day.
[00:15:08]  There's garbage in the streets because the garbage trucks don't have any gasoline.
[00:15:14]  Taxis are not running.
[00:15:15]  Buses are not running.
[00:15:17]  Soon, trains won't be running.
[00:15:20]  Is it possible, Professor, that there would be an armed insurgency?
[00:15:24]  The people rise up and demand their government to do something about this?
[00:15:29]  So people are incredibly stressed by this situation, and there's a lot of discontent with the government because people believe that the government hasn't done a very good job over the last few years in dealing with Cuba's broader economic crisis.
[00:15:44]  But right now, it's pretty clear that the United States is the one that's imposing an oil blockade.
[00:15:49]  We've been very open about the fact that we're doing that.
[00:15:53]  There have been some spontaneous demonstrations, protests in Cuba.
[00:15:58]  They're very common at this point because the situation is so desperate for people.
[00:16:03]  But there's no organized opposition really in Cuba.
[00:16:06]  The government has been very successful at pushing down, suppressing any kind of organized opposition, and forcing the leaders of opposition into exile.
[00:16:16]  Let's talk to Brian in East Sandwich, Massachusetts, Republican.
[00:16:20]  Go ahead, Brian.
[00:16:22]  Thank you very much, Professor Leo Grande.
[00:16:27]  To put it facetiously, I mean, for people that consume Cuba Libre from time to time, why did Bacardi choose to move to San Juan?
[00:16:38]  But more important, what a social breakdown or possibility or what's happening there now.
[00:16:45]  Do you see a Balcero type phenomenon or a Mario Boltlift type operation happening or the one foot in the water, one foot on Florida?
[00:16:58]  I mean, what do you see?
[00:16:59]  Do you see a brothers in arms or brothers in rescue dungeon assessment or something like that?
[00:17:07]  I'll take it off.
[00:17:08]  I'll take it offline.
[00:17:08]  Thank you, sir.
[00:17:10]  So Bacardi moved to Puerto Rico because Fidel Castro nationalized their operations in Cuba.
[00:17:17]  I do worry that as the situation on the island deteriorates, people are going to look for ways to leave.
[00:17:24]  They did that in 1990, as you mentioned, in the Mario Boat Lift.
[00:17:28]  They did it again in 1994 with the rafters or the Balcero crisis.
[00:17:33]  And we've already seen a small uptick in the number of people trying to come across the Florida Strait.
[00:17:40]  If the situation really becomes even worse, even more desperate, and particularly if there's an outbreak of social violence, I can very well imagine that we're going to see people trying to get onto anything that'll float and come across the Florida Strait.
[00:17:56]  And talk a little bit more about that.
[00:17:58]  Then what happens?
[00:17:59]  We've got people on boats trying to get into Florida.
[00:18:02]  Then what?
[00:18:03]  What does the U.S. government do?
[00:18:05]  Well, the Coast Guard will try to intercept them and take them back to Cuba.
[00:18:09]  We do have an agreement with the Cuban government that Cuban refugees intercepted at sea can be returned to Cuba.
[00:18:17]  The danger is that the numbers may just overwhelm the Coast Guard's ability to manage this.
[00:18:23]  And you may also see Cuban Americans get on boats and head south to rescue their family and friends.
[00:18:30]  That's what happened during the Carter administration in 1990.
[00:18:34]  And if you have both of those phenomenon at the same time, it's going to just overwhelm the Coast Guard's ability to manage it.
[00:18:41]  Let's talk to Cliff.
[00:18:43]  He's in Albany, New York, Democrat.
[00:18:45]  Go ahead, Cliff.
[00:18:46]  Yes, thank you.
[00:18:49]  I was wondering if when we get a new president, perhaps he's a little more tactful and talk to the Cuban authorities and say, can we, if we brought mercy ships, doctors, and tell them we could bring doctors without borders and show them that we really care, perhaps even tell them that we may even consider them being the 51st state.
[00:19:17]  Know them that we really care about them.
[00:19:20]  They're so close to us that it would be so easy to help them.
[00:19:24]  And you saw what happened years ago when Russia put the missiles in Cuba, how close they are to us, what a danger it would be.
[00:19:32]  I think it would be our advantage and their advantage too.
[00:19:37]  Thank you.
[00:19:39]  So the Cuban government and particularly the Cuban people would really like to have a better relationship with the United States.
[00:19:47]  And we saw that during the Obama Open.
[00:19:50]  Take you live now to Syracuse University for a discussion with tech journalist Kara Swisher on political reporting in the age of artificial intelligence and social media.