Donald Trump is pushing towards the end game in Cuba
With charges against Raúl Castro, his pressure campaign looks ever more like the one that deposed Nicolás Maduro
Few thought President Donald Trump would snatch Venezuela’s strongman, Nicolás Maduro. He now languishes in a Brooklyn jail cell. Fewer still take seriously the notion that Mr Trump might seize Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old Communist Party grandee who is Cuba’s most powerful man; his late brother, Fidel, brought communism to Cuba in the 1960s. But after the United States Department of Justice issued criminal charges against Mr Castro in Miami on May 20th, the possibility looks a little less remote.
The indictment accuses Mr Castro of ordering two aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based exile group, to be shot down in 1996, killing four people. He was Cuba’s defence minister at the time. He later became president and first secretary of the Communist Party, before formally retiring in 2021. Yet he is still Cuba’s de facto leader. All big decisions require his blessing. That includes any deal with Mr Trump and Marco Rubio, his Cuban-American secretary of state, who are determined to force change in Cuba.
The charges against Mr Castro are not the same as those against Mr Maduro, but the political use of the law looks similar. The Trump administration called the raid that captured Mr Maduro a law-enforcement operation. Now the Americans are also arguing that Cuba, which lies 145km from Florida, is a national-security risk because of its status as a failed state, its support for China and Russia and its outflow of migrants. American reconnaissance flights over Cuba are up. Military planners are reportedly weighing options, from limited strikes to a broader action.
The escalation follows months of coercion. Since removing Mr Maduro, the United States has blocked fuel shipments to Cuba. It has pressed countries across the region to cut off supplies of hard currency. The government in Havana has responded with limited concessions, including letting private firms import fuel and promising to allow Cubans abroad to invest in the island.
Unsatisfied by that, Messrs Trump and Rubio are increasing the pressure. On May 7th the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) put sanctions on Gaesa, the military-run conglomerate that controls much of Cuba’s economy. It is widely regarded as the Castro-family business. Mr Rubio called it “the heart of Cuba’s kleptocratic communist system”.
A week later John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, flew to Havana to meet Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Mr Castro’s grandson. He warned that time is running out to make “fundamental changes” and urged the regime to accept $100m in aid, to be distributed in co-ordination with the Catholic church. The meeting appears to have gone badly. On May 18th OFAC placed more of Cuba’s political and security apparatus under sanctions, including the regime’s notorious spy service.
What next? The Americans are open about wanting economic reforms, prisoner releases and compensation for expropriated property. Though they do not say so publicly, they probably want more drastic changes, too, such as breaking up Gaesa and a transition to democracy. The Trump administration has alternated between saying it would work with the regime and hinting that it must be removed. On May 14th Mr Rubio took a hard line: “I don’t think we’re going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge in that regime.”
A Venezuela-style operation may seem too extreme to the Trump administration. The sight of a 94-year-old man in handcuffs might not play as well with Americans as did Mr Maduro’s seizure. Nor is there an obvious figure who could take over from Mr Castro and do the Americans’ bidding, as there was for Mr Maduro. Mr Castro’s grandson is a gatekeeper, not a natural successor.
Still, Cubans are not dismissing the possibility of the first American military action against the island for six decades. The regime seems to be playing it up. Civilians are getting military training. Cuba’s defence forces are handing out leaflets telling people how to prepare for war. On May 18th President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that an attack would produce “a bloodbath of incalculable proportions”.
In part, the indictment is pitched at exiles in Miami who have been urging Mr Trump to be more aggressive. The date of its publication was symbolic: many exiles celebrate May 20th, the anniversary of Cuba’s independence. But the Trump administration may also wish to use it as leverage in negotiations.
That will be tricky. “The government is wholly incapable of changing course or implementing reforms to dig themselves out of the hole they are in,” says Ric Herrero of the Cuba Study Group in Washington, which favours engagement with Cuba’s government. Try to see what comes next, he says, and “things get muddy real quick.”
It can’t last much longer
What is clear is that Cuba’s situation is unsustainable. The sanctions on Gaesa will hurt: the conglomerate’s revenues are thought to be more than three times the state budget. It also controls up to $20bn in illicit assets. Foreign companies have until June 5th to wind down dealings with Gaesa or any entity it controls. Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd and France’s CMA CGM, the two big Western shipping companies that maintain operations with Cuba, have stopped accepting orders linked to the island while they assess the risks.
In a country that imports roughly 70% of its food, that could be devastating. Cuba’s energy minister has already said the island has run out of diesel and fuel oil for its power plants. Blackouts in Havana last up to 22 hours a day. For many, food is hard to come by. Services have broken down. “It’s like living in a rubbish bin,” says Yulieta Hernández Díaz, a Havana resident who owns a small construction firm.
Domestic pressure is growing. On May 13th police dispersed demonstrators in Havana protesting about the blackouts. Prisoners Defenders, a rights group based in Madrid, says Cuba has a record 1,260 political inmates. Pedro Monreal, a Cuban economist living in Madrid, reckons the economy may contract by 15% this year.
The regime says it is considering the offer of aid. To accept would be to admit its own failure. Rejecting it risks more protests as heat, hunger and blackouts worsen. Either way, the regime is running out of ways to say no to the United States. ■