Cuba’s Castro Clan Seeking To Cope With Trump

As President Trump pressures Cuba to follow the gradual opening underway in Venezuela, Administration envoys reportedly have met in Mexico with the 60-year-old son of Raúl Castro, Alejandro Castro Espín. Although Raúl Castro turns 95 in June, he regularly participates in key government meetings at Havana.“Nothing major goes on without Raúl signing off on it,” Cuba analyst William LeoGrande tells the Sun. “As Raúl’s son, Alejandro has the confidence of Raúl,” he said, referring to Cuba’s veteran military leader, younger brother of Fidel.In 2013 and 2014, Mr. Castro Espín, then a colonel in Cuba’s Interior Ministry, led talks with White House envoys that led to normalization of relations with America. In 2016, President Obama visited Havana. Although Mr. Castro Espín was promoted to Brigadier General, he largely disappeared from public view, possibly because he was seen as too open to dialogue with Washington.Now he may be useful again to Cuba’s opaque communist leadership. Mr. Trump is pushing Cuba into a corner. After decapitating Venezuela’s leadership with the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Mr. Trump now vows to block all oil deliveries to Cuba. People wait to board transportation at Havana, February 6, 2026. AP/Ramon EspinosaMr. Maduro, a graduate of a political school at Havana, had made Venezuela the top provider of oil for Cuba According to Cuban-American economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Venezuela’s subsidy amounted to 20 percent of Cuba’s economy, larger than the Soviet subsidy in the late 1980s.After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Cuba entered a self-described “Special Period” — economic depression, desperate poverty, and heavy emigration to America. As a legacy of this time, Cuba’s population contracted by 13 percent in a decade, hitting 9.7 million today, the lowest level since 1979.With a median age of 42 years, Cuba now has the oldest population in the Western Hemisphere. In the United States, the Cuban-born population has swollen to 2 million persons, equal to 20 percent of the population living on the island.“People feel betrayed, they talk about the failure of the Revolution,” the American chargé d’affaires in Havana, Mike Hammer, told Miami radio host Enrique Santos on Friday. Mr. Hammer recently toured the eastern provinces of Cuba. He said the poverty reminded him of his time as Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cuban tyrant Fidel Castro at the United Nations, October 12, 1979. Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress via Wikimedia CommonsCuba depends on imported oil for 60 percent of its needs. Mr. Trump has warned such countries as Algeria, Brazil, Mexico and Russia that they face American tariffs if they send oil to Cuba. Yesterday, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said her country has stopped shipping oil to Cuba. In January, for the first time in a decade, Cuba received no fuel imports, according to Kpler Ltd., a commodities data tracking company. In response, Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel announced last week gasoline rationing. He left the details to be announced on Friday by his commerce minister, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, a grandnephew of Raúl Castro. This week, three Canadian airlines, Air Canada, Westjet and Air Transat, stopped all flights to Cuba. With no jet fuel available on the island, other airlines plan to refuel in neighboring countries, such as the Dominican Republic. Bloomberg reports that at least two major resorts will close this week due to a lack of fuel and tourists.A Turkish Airlines plane takes off alongside an American Airlines plane at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, February 9, 2026. AP/Ramon EspinosaFrom Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov complained yesterday of “suffocating tactics employed by the United States.” After Russia failed to defend Mr. Maduro in Venezuela, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the mullahs in Iran, Cubans do not expect Russia to mount much of a defense. For now, the main card for the Castros to play is the threat of uncontrolled emigration to Florida, as close as 90 miles away. For Mr. Trump, who boasts of controlling America’s southern border, a flotilla of fishing boats packed with Cuban refugees would be a setback before November’s midterm elections.“It is very possible that a collapse would produce some kind of mass migration, which I am sure the administration would try to prevent,” one American diplomat, a veteran of several tours in Havana, tells the Sun. “Their first port of call would be Florida.” Publicly, Cuban officials breathe fire. An editorial in state news site Granma denounced the Trump Administration for “economic genocide.” On Thursday, Mr. Díaz-Canel gave a rare press conference at Havana. Framed by an image of Fidel Castro, he vowed: “To surrender isn’t an option for Cuba.” A man wearing a jacket in the colors of Venezuela’s flag lines up to purchase fuel at a gas station at Havana, February 6, 2026. AP/Ramon Espinosa“The fascism of Trump is lethal,” Mariela Castro, daughter of Raúl and brother of Alejandro, told Argentina’s Resumen Latinoamericano news site last week. A member of Cuba’s National Assembly, she continued: “As Fidel said: you don’t negotiate your principles. With imperialism and all its facets there is no possibility to negotiate, only to dialogue.”In private, her brother and other Cuban negotiators are believed to be negotiating compromises, hoping to avoid the kind of regime change advocated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban emigres. Compromises could include: releasing political prisoners, and opening cobalt and nickel mining to American companies, and allowing American investors to build beachfront hotels and golf courses on a tropical island a 45-minute flight from Miami.“The Cubans may be willing to address any issue the US wants to address, other than dismantle their political system and abolish socialism,” said Mr. LeoGrande, a Latin American politics professor at American University. In 2015, he co-authored “Back Channel to Cuba,” on the talks that led to the reopenings of the American embassy in Havana and of the Cuban embassy in Washington.Around the Caribbean, Mr. Trump’s 21st-century gunboat diplomacy is forcing other left-wing governments to tread carefully. On Sunday, Venezuela released 35 more political prisoners, bringing to 418 the total released since Mr. Maduro was grabbed by American agents one month ago.Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, salutes supporters on his inauguration day at Caracas, January 10, 2025. AP/Cristian HernandezThis week in Nicaragua, the government ends visa-free entry for Cubans. The Trump Administration had charged that thousands of Cubans took advantage of free entry to travel onward to America. Over the last month, Nicaragua has released dozens of political prisoners, a demand from the Trump Administration.For the Castro clan, concessions would be preferable to exile. A third child of Raúl Castro, Deborah, was married to Cuba’s most powerful general, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja. Before his death, he ran the nation’s largest economic conglomerate, Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.Spain, currently ruled by the left-wing Socialist Workers’ Party, would be one candidate for asylum. However, it would be impossible for the Castros to match the perks, privileges and status they have long enjoyed on the island.Unlike in Cuba, Spain holds free, multiparty elections. Next year, the left-wing government is expected to lose power. Spain is home to 200,000 Cuban exiles, the second largest Cuban community off the island, after America’s. The exiles and a new conservative government cannot be expected to roll out the red carpet for Communist Cuba’s ruling family.

Cuba’s Castro Clan Seeking To Cope With Trump

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