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Among Cuban Americans in south Florida, expectations are high that after Venezuela and now Iran, Cuba might be next on President Trump's list for regime change. Danny Rivero with member station WLRN reports from Hialeah, Florida, a city of over 200,000, where nearly 75% of the people are Cuban Americans.
DANNY RIVERO, BYLINE: Fernando Valdes is perched on the windowsill of a laundromat on Donald J. Trump Avenue in Hialeah, Florida - basically, the city's main street.
FERNANDO VALDES: (Whistling, speaking Spanish).
RIVERO: He's whistling to a bird to lure it closer in order to feed it. Valdes came from Cuba on a rickety boat during the Mariel boatlift of 1980, when 125,000 Cubans fled to Florida. And from what he hears from his family still there, things are worse than they've ever been. That's what everyone's talking about these days.
VALDES: (Speaking Spanish).
RIVERO: Valdes says the only way to make things turn around for Cubans on the island is for Americans to step up. He says Cubans are too battered from years of economic and political crisis to fight against the government. Since the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during a military raid in early January, U.S. pressure on Cuba has ramped up. President Trump has promised that the communist government's days are numbered.
(SOUNDBITE OF SCISSORS SNIPPING)
RIVERO: A few doors down from Valdes, Manuel Moya is trimming a man's hair in his barbershop, singing President Trump's praises.
MANUEL MOYA: (Speaking Spanish).
RIVERO: He says, "everything is going well because we finally have a president who will keep his word and liberate Cuba." He says, "that way, Cubans can get their country back." The Trump administration has restricted oil shipments to the island, making what was already a precarious humanitarian situation worse. Hospitals can't keep the lights on. Water taps are running dry because the pumps won't run. The United Nations has warned of deteriorating conditions.
ROSARIO PRIETO: (Speaking Spanish).
RIVERO: Rosario Prieto has a daughter on the island and a son-in-law who has lupus. She says the U.S. fuel restrictions directly hurt people like her family. The only ones who suffer the harsh measures, she says, are the regular people. Cuban government officials are not affected. She just left a shipping store to send a package of medicine to her family.
PRIETO: (Speaking Spanish, laughing).
RIVERO: She says, "forgive me for laughing." But the company told her, since there's no gas, the medicine would have to be sent by tricycle in Havana, a city of over 2 million people. The company gave no timeline for how long it could take.
BRYAN CALVO: I don't think we've ever been as close as we are now.
RIVERO: Bryan Calvo is the mayor of Hialeah. He's 28, Cuban American and Republican. He's eager for regime change in Cuba and points to Venezuela as the model.
CALVO: Could we see something similar in Cuba? I think that they certainly have the capability to do so. And I think that would make a lot of Cubans - a lot of Cuban Americans very happy if that was the action taken.
RIVERO: Calvo says the next president of Cuba might well be living in Hialeah right now. The mayor expects that if the Cuban regime falls, many of the recently arrived Cubans might return to the country.
CALVO: There will be something. We don't know what it is, we don't know when it will happen, but I think we'll see something big soon. And it's important for us as a community to be prepared because, you know, we could be seeing tens of thousands of people easily take to the streets in celebration.
RIVERO: He says his police and fire departments already have plans for massive street parties should that day ever come.
For NPR News, I'm Danny Rivero in Hialeah, Florida.
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