At the lavish home of one of Miami's top plastic surgeons, overlooking the Biscayne Bay, some of the wealthiest Cuban-American families in Florida have gathered. They are there to thrash out their vision of Cuba's future at the fourth meeting of the newly created Cuban-American National Chamber of Commerce (CANCC). Rum in hand and Rolexes on wrists, this is Miami's old money.
People with well-recognised Cuban-American surnames – like Bacardi and Babun – chat around the pool about the lamentable state of the island's economy, and share titbits of gossip about the latest political rumblings. "The intention of this evening is to gather under one roof the most prominent Cuban-American entrepreneurs in Miami-Dade County," says CANCC president Juan Omar Sixto, "and the objective is to be in Cuba once the regime falls". His guests are convinced that moment is nigh.
Millions without power as Cuba hit by latest major blackout US sanctions more Cuban companies and officials How the US oil blockade is pushing Cuba into darkness This influential community of Cuban exiles has detested the Communist-run government ever since the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro expropriated their lands and nationalised their families' companies after taking power in 1959. And they have wielded their political and economic clout in Florida over the years to shape Washington's policies towards their homeland. Sixto fled the island as a teenager.
Now a real estate developer in his early 80s, his organisation is drafting plans for what he calls "the day after" in Cuba. The CANCC has created a proposal for a Cuban Stock Exchange and formed committees on everything from energy infrastructure to food security. Post-Communist planning is nothing new in Miami.
Countless documents and logistical plans have been drawn up by interest groups over the decades, some of them more sober and measured than others. The difference now, insists Sixto, is the Trump administration's push to force total change on the island. And he says they have the ear of some high-profile contacts including people close to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
"Together with deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical supplies, we'd go and do business in Cuba right away," says Sixto. In Cuba itself, such claims are mostly met with scepticism. In the face of Washington's "maximum pressure" campaign on Cuba, the island's leadership recently announced 176 economic liberalisation measures.
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