Leading Cuban dissidents see Trump as best shot at change, but want a bigger role

The Trump administration’s pressure campaign on Cuba is probably the best chance for collapsing the country’s repressive, communist regime, high-profile Cuban political activists and survivors of the regime’s prisons told The Hill. 

But more effort needs to be given to including the Cuban opposition and democratic movement, they added.

José Daniel Ferrer, a leading Cuban political activist exiled in Miami, and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, released in July after five years in a Cuban prison after direct intervention from the U.S., spoke to The Hill last week ahead of their acceptance of the freedom of speech award from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a pro-democracy organization funded by Congress.  

“This is perhaps the best chance that something will occur,” Ferrer, who was also released from prison in Cuba in October 2025 after demands from the U.S., said of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign. 

He said the unprecedented efforts were buoyed by the high discontent among the Cuban people, organizing more than 1,000 spontaneous protests throughout the summer, rivaling the 2021 protest movement that triggered a brutal crackdown, including Ferrer’s arrest. 

Alcántara, a prominent political artist, was also a victim of that crackdown. He was arrested in July of that year as a leader in the San Isidro Movement, a group of artists, journalists and activists demanding the right to freedom of speech, inspiring a mass protest movement under the slogan “patria y vida,” or “country and life,” a play on the communist revolutionary slogan “country or death.”

The Cuban government released Alcántara on July 18 under U.S. pressure but also forced him into exile — separating him from his family, friends and political community. 

Alcántara said he is still recovering from his time in prison and getting used to the reality of life in exile, describing it as a clash of two sides of the Straits of Florida. 

“I am still processing. It’s a difficult process, but........

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