Trump has promised Cuban Americans that 2026 is the year of change. But University of Miami historian Michael Bustamante says the political reality doesn't match their regime change expectations.

Some parallels have been drawn between Cuba's situation and the Venezuela regime decapitation that took place earlier this year. But Venezuela had a fractious yet organized opposition that came together around the 2024 election and, by most accounts, won it. The same cannot be said about Cuba; its opposition is divided and mostly in jail or in exile, with no clear figure ready to take over if the government was to fall.

Bustamante says the parallel to Venezuela actually cuts the other way. If the Trump administration concluded that even Venezuela's organized opposition wasn't ready to govern, how can it reach a different conclusion about Cuba? "That is not a case that they're making," he says. The gap between the expectations in Miami and the realities in Havana is growing harder to ignore.