US deals major blow to Cuban regime with indictment against Raúl Castro

In March 2020, the U.S. government charged Nicolás Maduro with drug trafficking. That move ultimately became the Trump administration’s justification for intervening on January 3 in Venezuela and kidnapping the Chavista president. Now the same gambit is being repeated, this time aimed at Cuba. At 1.00 p.m. local time (PDT), the Department of Justice will, barring a major last-minute surprise, indict 94-year-old Raúl Castro on charges that date back 30 years: the shooting down of two planes belonging to the anti-Castro organization Brothers to the Rescue. It will be Washington’s retaliation against the strongman of the Castro regime. And if history repeats itself, the moment when Washington believes it will have the legal basis necessary to intervene on the island as it did in Caracas, although experts have questioned the legitimacy of that operation. Meanwhile, the U.S. president has not ruled out a diplomatic agreement with the regime.

Only one formality remains before charges against Castro can be filed: a grand jury must find the accusations viable. Castro was defense minister at the time the planes were shot down. All four crew members died after being shot down — Armando Alejandre, 45; Carlos Costa, 29; Mario de la Peña, 24; and Pablo Morales, 29 — and, according to independent investigations by the UN, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and other bodies, the incident unquestionably took place in international waters. That made it an attack on defenseless civilians, not — as Cuba claimed at the time — an operation carried out over the island’s territory as a legitimate act of self-defense.

The filing of charges, which will be handled by Department of Justice prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida — who is ideologically aligned with Trumpism — represents the capstone of a whole series of pressure measures by Washington against the island, from sanctions on its leaders to the practical imposition of an energy embargo after the cancellation of Venezuelan oil shipments that the island relied on, in addition to the January 29 executive order that opened the door to tariffs and secondary sanctions against countries that provide fuel to Cuba.

Quiñones had already created a task force in March to open criminal investigations into representatives of the Havana regime, a move that at the time was seen as potentially paving the way to take measures against Castro-era leaders similar to those that ended with Maduro sitting in a New York courtroom. “Prosecutors across the country work every day to secure justice, which includes efforts to fight international crime,” the Department of Justice said at the time in a statement.

In remarks from the White House on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump did not mention the imminent indictment. But he did refer to his demand for political and economic changes on the island, and he left the door open to an agreement with the regime similar to the formula applied in Venezuela after Maduro’s detention. That proposal was already conveyed last week by CIA director John Ratcliffe during his surprise visit to Havana to meet with Raúl Castro’s grandson, Raúl Rodríguez Castro, alias “El Cangrejo,” who is widely tipped to become the leader Washington would be willing to work with if there is a transition.

“Look, Cuba is calling us. They need help: Cuba is a failed nation. Cuba needs help and we’ll do that,” the president said while overseeing construction work on the large ballroom he envisions for the White House. “That’s not going to be hard for us to solve,” the president added. Asked whether that could be achieved even if the current regime stays in power — as happened in Venezuela, where Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former number two, is in charge — he said, “I can do that, whether you change the regime or not.”

Cuba’s economic situation, which was already very fragile, has become desperate as a result of the energy blockade imposed by the White House, and the island now faces one of its worst humanitarian crises. So severe was the situation that last week authorities warned that the last reserves of oil had been completely exhausted.

In its most recent pressure measure before the indictment of Raúl Castro, the Trump administration on Monday imposed sanctions on 11 individuals and three entities from the political and military structures of the regime. According to the State Department, which said further similar measures would arrive in the coming days and weeks, these punishments are part of the “Trump Administration’s comprehensive campaign to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime and to hold accountable both the regime and those who provide it material support.”

In comments posted on X, Republican congresswoman from south Florida María Elvira Salazar said of the sanctions and the prospect of an indictment against Castro: “The Trump Administration is not playing games. When President Trump and Secretary Rubio say the Cuban regime’s time is up, they mean it. Every new sanction sends the same message to Havana: the free world already knows who they are, what they have done, and where the money is. No more concessions to a mafia dictatorship that turned Cuba into a prison and exported repression across the Americas. The walls are closing in on the dictatorship. And for the first time in a long time, the regime looks nervous.”

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