Mauricio Claver-Carone believes that banning travel and remittances are “old tools.”
14ymedio, Madrid, 4 April 2025 — The United States special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, stated this Thursday that the Donald Trump administration will exert more pressure on the Cuban military and intelligence apparatus, and estimated that the economic pressure applied to date on the island’s regime has been insufficient. “We are going to be more surgical, more effective,” he said at an event in Spanish, held at Miami-Dade College alongside Aaron Rosen, president of the Miami Global Affairs Council, and reported by local media.
Asked about the letter sent to the White House by Republican Congressman Carlos Giménez, in which he called for a ban on travel and remittances to the island, Claver-Carone opined that, while it’s a proposal that “comes from a very good place,” it involves “old tools.” “I think we can be more creative,” he affirmed, insisting that “the Cuban government must understand that our tools and President Trump’s willingness in this regard are different from what they’ve seen in the past.”
“The sanctions themselves are based on old laws that sometimes have no side effects,” he explained, unlike in Venezuela, where “the instruments are much more targeted, effective, have side effects, and are therefore more powerful.”
There is, he said, “a historic opportunity for political opening, for a transition.”
During the current president’s first term (2016-2020), he stated, “we ran out of time to focus on the economic pillars, particularly the regime’s military and intelligence services.” The first objective, he asserted, was “to repair the damage left by the Biden administration.”
He declined to comment, however, on the draft measure, revealed by The New York Times on March 14, to include Cuba on a red list of whose citizens would be banned from entering the United States. “I neither affirm nor deny,” he said, “that’s still being discussed, I have nothing to add.”
During the conversation, the official unreservedly defended the current president’s tightening of immigration policy, whose intentions, he asserted, differ from those of previous administrations. There is, he said, “a historic opportunity for political openness, for a transition.”
He especially supported the deportation of members of the Tren de Aragua criminal group to Venezuela, as part of a “broader strategy” to pressure Nicolás Maduro’s regime. He compared the latter’s strategy to that of Fidel Castro in 1980, when he released criminals from Cuban prisons, who were among the 125,000 Cubans who reached the shores of Florida during the Mariel boatlift. He added that unlike other presidents, who weren’t decisive enough to expel them, “President Trump is decisive.”
Trump, despite ongoing global crises such as the war in Ukraine, “remains very focused on Venezuela.”
Regarding criticism of widespread deportations and the equating of all Venezuelan migrants with criminals, he stated: “We understand that there are challenges, and it’s painful. There is short-term pain.” Expanding, he argued that “another thing that all these regimes and dictators have also learned, starting with Cuba, is that the easiest way to achieve totalitarian control is if you don’t like it, you leave.” It happened in Venezuela and it’s happening in Nicaragua, he said.
Claver-Carone noted that Trump, despite ongoing global crises such as the war in Ukraine, “remains very focused on Venezuela” and that they will work toward the goal of making it a democratic country.
He also justified the “pain” the measures could cause to the Cuban and Venezuelan people: “Either it’s short-term pain for long-term benefits, or there will be long-term pain for no benefits. In the short term, there are things that may seem annoying or disruptive. But honestly, if you don’t do them, they don’t work. So we have to go all in, go big, or go home.”
As a member of the Cuban-American community, he urged: “If you don’t want to spend 60 years in exile, then stop that process now, make the short-term sacrifices now, because otherwise, you won’t get anywhere.”
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