While Arabs are ousting dictators, it’s tyranny as usual in Cuba, where U.S. government contractor Alan Gross went on trial last week for espionage. Or at least that’s what the Castro regime said took place. The civilized world doesn’t know because the two-day proceeding was held behind closed doors. The regime simply announced that a verdict would soon be delivered, which could condemn the 61-year-old to 20 years in prison.

Mr. Gross stands accused of bringing computer equipment to the island to help Cuban Jews communicate with the diaspora. The dictatorship, which is terrified of the Internet, says Mr. Gross acted “against the integrity and independence” of Cuba. He has been held in Villa Marista prison since December 2009.

Cuban flags fly beside the U.S. Interests Section office in Havana

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

One speculation is that Fidel and Raul Castro want to trade Mr. Gross for five Cubans arrested in 1998 and convicted for spying in the U.S. President Obama can’t make that trade. Yet the U.S. is not powerless, despite the feeble comments by State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley last week that the U.S. has been in “dialogue” with Cuba for the past year and has “raised Mr. Gross’s case in every instance.”

The language the Castro brothers really understand is financial. Every year the U.S. issues 20,000 permanent resident visas for Cubans to enter the U.S. The program is a safety valve for discontent on the island, and the emigres who join millions of their brethren in the U.S. become new sources of revenue for Cuba when they send remittances home. A message that future visas will depend on the return of Mr. Gross would get the regime’s attention.

We warned a year ago that Castro would use this incident to test Mr. Obama, and Mr. Gross’s trial is a sign that the regime believes it has nothing to worry about.