Watch out, Cuba – Donald Trump is coming for you next…

After the drama of the Venezuelan operation, the focus of US military activity switched almost at once to Iran, as a more obvious target for Donald Trump’s 21st-century version of the Monroe Doctrine seemed to slip from view. That target is Cuba.

The relative quiet of the past month, however, may have been deceptive – and could indeed be about to end, potentially bringing about one of the most radical changes in the region since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and the Cuban missile crisis that nearly plunged the world into war three years later.

For while there has been no actual regime-change in Caracas, despite the arrest of president Nicolas Maduro, the US forced an end to Venezuela’s vital fuel shipments to Cuba, which now risks a more acute emergency than anything it has faced hitherto.

In the past two weeks, the Cuban government has warned foreign airlines that it cannot guarantee to refuel their planes. Canada has cancelled all flights to Cuba, and even Russia – which remained an ally of Cuba after the Soviet Union’s collapse – said that it, too, was halting all flights to Cuba, except for some planes that it was sending empty to evacuate its tourists.

With the effective end of foreign tourism, Cuba is losing one of its few sources of foreign currency. The country’s domestic fuel rationing system, long patchy and unreliable, is at breaking point. Periodic power cuts are affecting many areas, including the capital, Havana. In sum, the US noose would appear to be tightening, without any circling gunboats or direct action on its part. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that an end, of some sort, is in the offing.

US intentions, on the other hand, remain unclear. At the end of last month, Donald Trump issued a fierce Executive Order accusing the Cuban government of supporting and aligning with “hostile state actors”, including Russia, China and Iran, as well as efforts to “destabilise the Western hemisphere”. He threatened tariffs on any country supplying Cuba with anything.

Within a couple of days, however, Trump was telling reporters (at Mar-a-Lago, not a million miles from Cuba) that Cuba was a “failing nation”, but that: “We’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.” He rounded off in classic Trump fashion: “I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba.”

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, responded – in front of a photograph of Fidel Castro in revolutionary mode – with his own, more formal statement. Cuba, he said, was “willing to engage in dialogue with the United States, a dialogue on any topic, but without pressure or preconditions”. Evidence of how keen Cuba was to get this message across was that it was broadcast on TV and radio – and YouTube. Unconfirmed reports suggest talks might be in progress in Mexico.

Whether or not there are talks, however, the fact that the two sides appear to be in communication has to be a plus. But it also opens questions about what sort of “deal” might be on the table, and whether US-engineered regime-change is off, or was ever on, the cards.

Of the various options that could be envisaged, the most benign would be a return to the opening towards Cuba that Barack Obama made in his second term, which permitted travel and investment, but which was reversed by Trump in his first term. For such a reopening to be possible, Cuba – under its current, or another, leadership – would doubtless have to reorient its policies away from Russia, a move that would surely rest in part on what was on offer from the United States.

Then again, the choice for Havana might not be as hard as it would once have been – nor perhaps for Moscow. While Russia could even now be shipping emergency fuel supplies to Cuba (which would take several weeks and alleviate Cuba’s plight only for a while), Russia’s decision to evacuate its tourists, and state for the record that its incoming planes are empty (ie, not laden with food or other aid), suggests it may be distancing itself from this longstanding outpost.

Priority to the Ukraine war might be one reason, but another could be Russia’s natural sympathy with Trump’s views on spheres of influence, which could militate against more than rhetorical support for Cuba.

The other clear US option would be regime change in Cuba – and in principle, there is probably nothing the White House would like more. Actually bringing it about, however, is another matter. Cubans, even desperate Cubans, have a strong sense of their history and identity. Imposing a new leader from among the Florida exiles might end badly.

Fomenting internal change might be a more realistic option, but this could take time, and there is little sign of an internal opposition to build on. Added to which, Trump has decried the regime-change efforts of previous US administrations, insisting that he is not about imposing other ways of life on other countries. So far, he has fought shy of doing that, including in Iran.

Could there be an exception for Cuba? Perhaps, given that regime-change is an option enthusiastically embraced by many Cuban emigres in the US, including the Floridian and second-generation Cuban emigre, Marco Rubio, who is Trump’s secretary of state. Successful regime change could also be an asset for Trump going into the November mid-term Congressional elections. A failed or contested intervention, on the other hand, could become a liability, including to Rubio, who is seen as having 2028 presidential aspirations.

The downside for Trump to a revamped Obama option (aside from Trump’s undisguised contempt for the 44th President) is that Cuba, unlike Venezuela with its oil or Ukraine with its rare earths, has next to nothing to pay with. Cuba needs massive investment, for which returns, even in the best-case scenario, could be a while in coming.

On the other hand, there could surely be some appeal for Trump, if not to bringing Cuba fully in from the cold, then at least to no longer having an impoverished irritant and potential enemy outpost only 90 miles off the Florida Keys. It is probably the one change that could do most for the security and cohesion, at least of the northern part of the Western hemisphere.

Parts of the former Soviet bloc have shown how rapidly economies can flourish once freed from dogma. Whether such an undramatic choice will recommend itself to the disruptor-in-chief who resides in the White House, however, is another matter.