Cuba’s Young Castros, a Generation Beyond the Reach of American Law, Woo Washington

American law is a barrier to normalizing relationships with a Cuban government featuring its dictators, Fidel or Raúl Modesto Castro. Yet there’s no such prohibition of the family’s other members, who are wooing Washington and raising hopes for the island’s post-communist future.The 1996 Helms-Burton Act — also called the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity or Libertad Act — imposes several statutory benchmarks that Cuba must meet before an American president can end the embargo. Among these are that Havana’s government “does not include Fidel Castro or Raúl Castro.”Fidel passed the dictatorship to Raúl Castro in 2006 before passing away in 2016. The younger Castro stepped down as First Secretary of the Communist Party in 2021, ending the family’s rule. Although he kept influencing policy, Raúl Castro turned 95 in June and is now watching his family reaching across the Florida Strait.Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raul “Raulito” Castro, “has been in talks with the Trump administration,” Tuesday’s New York Times reported, calling him “a key envoy” to President Trump. He held previous roles as a bodyguard for his grandfather and a colonel in the interior ministry.“Could he be,” the Times asked of the younger Raul, “Cuba’s next leader?” Known as “El Cangrejo” or “the Crab” for having six fingers on one hand, he may be eyed should America choose to swap out the current leader, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, as Washington did in Venezuela and laid plans to do in Iran.Fidel Castro’s grandson, Sandro Castro, told CNN in May that Mr. Diaz-Canel, “is not doing a good job.” A bar owner with over 165,000 followers on Instagram, he said that “the majority of Cubans want capitalism, not communism,” which appealed to hawkish American ears.“I am proud of my name, logically,” Sandro said, but he’s “just another citizen.” He described Fidel as “a person who had his principles like everyone else” before asserting that the dictator “also respected others’ opinions.” That counterfactual could count against him with Americans and Cuban political prisoners alike.In an Instagram reel, Sandro pretended to receive a call from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and hung up on him. It’s a joke that could hurt him if the Cuban-American, one of the top contenders for the 2028 GOP nomination with Vice President Vance, succeeds Mr. Trump.A parody Sandro performed with a man dressed as Mr. Trump seeking to purchase Cuba satirized the seven-decade standoff between the two nations. While the social-media savvy will resonate with young Cubans yearning to turn the page on the past, he risks appearing more court jester than king.Raúl and Fidel’s grandnephew, Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, has been one of Cuba’s deputy prime ministers since October. In March, he told NBC News that Cuba “is open for business” with American companies, foreshadowing the 176 measures taken to decentralize the country’s economy in June.Mr. Fraga is deputy prime minister and minister of foreign trade and investment. While wise not to take job descriptions at face value in communist regimes, Mr. Fraga in March lived up to his title by welcoming back persons who escaped Cuba to invest in the new, private economy.However, Mr. Fraga marked the centenary of Fidel’s birth on Tuesday with an X post that was anchored in the old regime. “We reaffirm our eternal commitment to the work he left us,” he wrote, “to our Revolution, to our people,” and to socialism. A hashtag translated to “100 years with Fidel.”A sign in Mr. Fraga’s favor, the independent, Nicaragua-based Havana Times reported, is that “official media have omitted any reference to his family ties” in October. Yet he toes the Communist Party line that America’s embargo is responsible for Cuba’s woes with no criticism for its repressive government.Time has rendered the Helms-Burton Act’s prohibition against the Castro brothers moot, but the country can’t just wait out its other stipulations. The family’s younger generation could help bring about those conditions and end the embargo, if they prove willing to bury the past and reach for a brighter future.

Cuba’s Young Castros, a Generation Beyond the Reach of American Law, Woo Washington

Cuba’s Young Castros, a Generation Beyond the Reach of American Law, Woo Washington

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