The administration of Donald Trump in the United States, emboldened by the successful ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is reportedly pushing for regime change in Cuba by the end of this year. The strategy is to exploit the situation in which the Cuban economy is on the verge of collapse due to the cutoff of Venezuelan oil supplies, recruiting insiders within the Cuban regime to bring about a change in power.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 21st (local time), citing sources familiar with the matter, that the Trump administration is looking for insiders who can help broker negotiations to remove the Cuban communist regime by year's end.

The WSJ said U.S. government officials are contacting Cuban exiles and civic groups in Miami and Washington to properly grasp the internal situation of the current regime and to find a figure who will embark on negotiations.

U.S. officials said President Trump and his close aides view the collapse of the Cuban communist regime as a potential decisive test of the National Security Strategy (NSS), which aims to expand U.S. control over the Western Hemisphere. Changing the Cuban communist regime is also a long-held ambition of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who comes from a Cuban immigrant family and led the U.S. military operation in Venezuela.

President Trump believes the ‘Venezuelan method’ of recruiting collaborators within the regime has been successful, as interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who assumed power after Maduro was ousted, has shown a cooperative attitude toward the United States. Before carrying out the operation to apprehend President Maduro, the United States recruited his key confidants and obtained their help.

The Trump administration is seeking to weaken the Cuban regime by blocking the supply of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. The United States judges that after the ouster of President Maduro, who had played the role of ‘patron’ by supplying Venezuelan oil at low prices, the Cuban economy has fallen into its worst condition. Economists warn that within the coming weeks Cuba could run out of oil and the economy could become completely paralyzed.

Since Hugo Chavez took power in 1999, Venezuela has supplied crude at prices below market rates. Venezuelan oil has served as a lifeline for the Cuban economy, which has been withered by long-standing U.S. economic sanctions.

The Trump administration is also tightening the Cuban economy by targeting the overseas medical dispatch program, a major source of foreign currency for Cuba, and by banning the issuance of visas to Cuban and foreign officials who support it.

Following the success of the Venezuela military operation, President Trump has repeatedly designated Cuba as the next target and urged negotiations. On the 11th, he said, “There will no longer be oil or money supplied to Cuba. I strongly recommend that they negotiate before it is too late.”

However, some point out that it will be difficult to apply the ‘Venezuela model’ to Cuba, which has long maintained a one-party dictatorship, unlike Venezuela where opposition movements, protests, and elections existed despite the dictatorship of Maduro. The WSJ noted that because of political repression by the Cuban regime, civil society barely exists in Cuba.

Ricardo Zuniga, who helped with negotiations to normalize diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba under the Obama administration, said, “The Cuban regime is a far more difficult problem to solve,” and added, “There is no one there who can be tempted to work for the U.S. side.”

The Cuban regime is rejecting U.S. proposals for negotiations. President Miguel Diaz-Canel, at a ceremony mourning 32 Cuban military and police who died during the U.S. operation to apprehend President Maduro, declared, “Surrender or capitulation is impossible, and there can be no agreement of any kind based on coercion or intimidation.”

Since the success of the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959, Cuba has aligned closely with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and has maintained an adversarial relationship with the United States. The United States attempted a regime change by invading the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and has pursued a comprehensive economic embargo against Cuba since 1962.