Castro Acolytes Can Not Remain in Power in Cuba, Enjoy Cooperative Relationship With US: Analyst

And joining us to discuss those remarks Trump just made in that last package about Cuba is Rear Admiral Peter Brown. He's a retired U.S. Coast Guard and senior fellow with the America First Policy Institute. Thank you for joining us this morning. Trump, of course, making the most specific comments about U.S. intervention and regime change in Cuba that we just played. Your reactions and your expectations. Well, thank you for having me on again, Kerry. This is a very important topic, and honestly, over the weekend with the Summit of the Americas, the president, the entire administration's emphasis on the Western Hemisphere has been shown. And I think that regime change certainly is coming to Cuba, whether it's a changing of the regime or a changing of the behavior of the regime, and it remains to be seen. It's long been thought that any Castro or Castro acolyte cannot remain in a position of power in Cuba to have a reasonable and cooperative relationship with the United States, which the Castros have refused to have for the past 60 years. And Peter, for the benefit of our audience and to your last point, can you remind them about the Castro regime, how it utilized violence and terror against its own people? It's certainly one of the most repressive communist regimes in history, and proportionally to its people, throwing people in jail. The Committees for Defense of the Revolution, the neighborhood spy networks, the infiltration of the diaspora of Cubans, including in South Florida, they've taken every measure possible to repress the people. To the government of Cuba, the current regime, security means internal security. It means repressing the people from getting information and having a voice to speak out against the failures, the decades of history of failure in that regime. And Peter, with your expertise in the Coast Guard, there is, of course, this famous floating buoy in Key West. It marks the U.S.'s most southern continental point, and it reads 90 miles to Cuba. How has having this rogue regime so close to the U.S. challenged our national security? Well, we talked a little bit about the intelligence penetration of Cuba towards particularly South Florida in a human intelligence standpoint. But because their economy is so weak, they require support from external benefactors, notably Russia, China, and up to a recent point, Venezuela. And the way they pay that back is by giving technical intelligence access to those regimes. And that creates a particular national security vulnerability for the United States. When the Russians and the Chinese are listening to the three combatant commands that are in Florida, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Central Command, currently running the war in Iran, and U.S. Special Operations Command, as well as our space facilities at Cape Canaveral, both government and commercial, they are picking every signal possible out of the atmosphere to listen to, to study, and ultimately to plan to harm the United States. And Cuba is complicit in allowing that to happen. Yeah, and you've sort of laid out the answer already to my next question by outlining what those risks were. But what advantages would regime change signify for the U.S.? So, the U.S. could have then a more reliable partner in the Western Hemisphere, as we have with the dozen other nations that were present at the summit, to push back against those external predations. Not only the Latin American countries in the hemisphere, but also the English-speaking countries, the smaller Caribbean islands, the Bahamas, Guyana, Trinidad, and Tobago, that have been really penetrated by Chinese diplomatic and economic coercion. And certainly military capability has to be on the mind of the Chinese. So, if we can continue to push that back, both from our hemisphere and from Iran, that's a net positive for the United States and for the Americas. And Peter, how much longer do you think the regime in Cuba can hold on? I think at this point, it's probably measured in a matter of months, as the president said over the weekend. He wants to deal with the current situation in Iran, then give Secretary Rubio a couple days off before concentrating on Cuba. But given the economics and the secondary sanctions and the isolation of the people of Cuba from the basic necessities of life, I can't see this regime staying in power and maintaining its current policies for more than a couple weeks to months. Wow. And Peter, you just mentioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio, perhaps one of the most famous Cuban Americans. What role do you see for him in what may come? Well, he is one of the busiest people in the current administration with dual role as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. So I see him being kind of the overseer of an overall policy toward Cuba and certainly having a personal interest in how this is going to go. So I think it remains to be seen exactly what the shape of that changed regime looks like, whether it's build up internally from Cuba, from Cuban Americans in South Florida and elsewhere, or some other mechanism. But Secretary Rubio will have a key role in shaping the future relationship with Cuba and the United States. Appreciate you sharing all of your insights with us this morning, Rear Admiral Peter Brown. Thank you. Thank you, Kerry.