Cuba isn't invited to Trump's Shield of the Americas summit in Doral. But it looms large

Miami Republican lawmaker Carlos Giménez says he believes the communist regime in his native Cuba is near its end, echoing comments by President Donald Trump ahead of Saturday’s gathering of a dozen Latin American leaders in Doral.

“He believes the days are close. I believe the president,” Giménez said as he attended a welcome reception Friday for Trump’s Shield of the Americas Summit. “If I had to bet, I would say this regime’s days are numbered, and I’m not talking years, I’m talking days.”

Giménez said the Cuban regime has never been in a weaker state than it is right now. In addition to looking forward to its demise, he’s hoping that charges will be brought in the U.S. against Raul Castro and other high-ranking Cuban officials for a variety of crimes against the people of the United States, including the 1996 shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.

“Those four Americans that were downed by the Cuban government at the order of Raul Castro, they deserve justice,” the congressman, who was born in Cuba and migrated to the United States in 1960, said. “Yes, 30 years later; it may be justice delayed, but they deserve justice.”

Cuba is not among the nations invited to the summit, which has been billed by the administration as a meeting of “our strongest like-minded allies in our hemisphere to promote freedom, security and prosperity in our region.”

But as invitees prepared to meet with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the president’s golf resort in Doral on Saturday, Cuba’s political future loomed large over the gathering.

“Cuban society is waiting” for the world to make them a priority, Bolivia President-elect Rodrigo Paz Pereira said. “It will be sooner than expected, and that will happen very soon.”

Paz, along with Chiles’s president-elect and the foreign minister of Costa Rica, were among those who attended the reception and addressed the press along with Giménez, fellow Miami Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Doral Mayor Christi Fraga.

Paz said his presence at the summit reflects what he describes as Bolivia’s “diplomatic pragmatism,” as his government seeks to strengthen relations with the United States and other Latin American countries.

“It has a new opportunity to move forward,” he said of Bolivia. “And it is about cooperation and growth.”

Costa Rica Foreign Minister Arnoldo André Tinoco also welcomed the opportunity to meet with Trump and discuss regional challenges, including narcotrafficking and the instability in Haiti, where armed gangs have helped fueled violence and migration pressures across the region, and Cuba, whose humanitarian crisis grows worse by the day. He noted that in 2023 his nation was flooded with migrants using his country as a pass through to the U.S., but today that number has dropped “to zero.” Still, he hopes for the opportunity to discuss migration.

But attention inside the press room repeatedly turned to Cuba.

“It’s a glorious moment for the United States and the Western Hemisphere, that Cuba, which is the mothership of evil in the Western Hemisphere, is about to fold,” Salazar said as she praised the gathering and Trump’s focus on the region.

Salazar acknowledged the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Cuba.

“But we do know that the decision has been made by the White House to put an end to that regime that is in the business of power and has no other desire than to enrich themselves and to retain their interests in power and not feed the population, not give them electricity or water or medicine or clothes,” she said.

As Trump welcomed leaders Saturday to the city known as “Doralzuela” because of its large Venezuelan population, he told the room that he was personally involved in negotiations over Cuba’s future — and reiterated its imminent fall.

“Cuba’s at the end of the line, they’re very much at the end of the line,” he said. “It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is.”

Challenge in Cuba lingers

Salazar said recovery in Cuba will be challenging: “The big question is how can we reconstruct that island that has been destroyed after 60 years of communism? And that is a challenge that South Florida has.”

A dozen leaders were invited to participate in the summit. The number was fewer than those who attended a narco-trafficking conference on Thursday at the U.S. Southern Command headquarters, also in Doral.

Salazar said she did not know the specifics of Saturday’s agenda, but was “grateful” that the leaders came to South Florida. Their presence, she added, shows “President Trump is putting America first by engaging with our neighbors because like Marco Rubio said, ‘Anything that happens in the Western Hemisphere, it gets to us much faster because of the proximity”

Doral’s mayor emphasized the importance of South Florida — and her city — to Latin America.

“Miami-Dade County has become one of the most important economic and diplomatic crossroads of the Americas, and the city of Doral sits right in the center of that ecosystem, a city built in on to international business and entrepreneurship and global connectivity for our community,” Fraga said.

Events like the summit, she added, bring economic benefits to local businesses, hotels and restaurants while strengthening relationships with international leaders and investors.

Fraga, who is Cuban-American, also expressed hope for changes in Cuba. “We’re all very hopeful that this will be a time to see many nations free.”