The visit to Cuba last week by John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, marked the latest chapter in Washington’s efforts to coerce Havana into rejoining its strategic orbit over six decades after the Fidel Castro-led revolution turned the Caribbean island into a bastion of resistance close to American shores. Mr Ratcliffe reportedly told Cuban leaders that the United States of America demands that the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, step down and for the country to abandon its socialist path for a pro-American approach, or face a more direct Washington-led, regime-change operation. Mr Díaz-Canel has responded by saying that a military intervention would result in a “bloodbath”. Reports have also suggested that the US is about to seek the indictment of the former Cuban president, Raúl Castro; this could serve as another pressure point especially since the US had cited an indictment against the former Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, to justify his illegal abduction from Caracas earlier this year. Washington’s message appears to be clear: if Cuba does not accept the demands of the Donald Trump administration, the US could repeat a Venezuela-like operation — in Havana this time. All of this follows months of an ever-tightening economic squeeze that the US has imposed on Cuba by stopping fuel flows to the country from Venezuela, which is now effectively Washington’s protectorate. Cuban officials have said they are running out of diesel and other petroleum products. The country’s economy has almost collapsed.

Mr Trump is only following in the footsteps of his predecessors who imposed a blockade on Cuba for decades despite condemnation from the United Nations. Barring a brief period under the former president, Barack Obama, the US has long used its military and economic sledgehammers to make an example out of Cuba so that any other country in the Western hemisphere that dreams of standing up to Washington’s imperial might knows what it might face. But Mr Trump has done away with the previously unannounced attempts at regime change in Cuba: instead, he has turned that goal into a public spectacle, issuing frequent threats to Cuba. Brought to a standstill by Iran in the Middle East, Mr Trump might be tempted to try and grab Cuba to claim a victory. There will be those, including many in Cuba seeking an end to a failing and often repressive system, who will celebrate. But it would be another nail in the coffin of the rules-based order and further dent America’s image as a force for good.