The United States indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro in federal court last weekone of his strongest actions against the island since the end of the Cold War.
An unsealed indictment accuses Castro, the 94-year-old brother of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and five others of being involved in the shooting down of two small jets in Cuba in 1996. Four people, three of them American citizens, were killed.
The accusation is the latest in a series of US actions that have left the island in dire straits. The US embargo on Venezuelan oil has plunged Cuba into a major energy crisis, with power outages affecting everything from homes to hospital. The crisis is so great that Cuba has cut the work week to four days for government companies; school days have also been shortened, and universities have removed in-person attendance requirements.
“For the last 50 years or so, the United States has ensured that no country – except for a couple over which the United States had no jurisdiction, such as Venezuela – (will) sell oil to Cuba,” Cecile SheaCuba expert and non-resident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on International Affairs, he said Today, It’s Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram. “Now that Venezuela is also not selling oil to Cuba, it means that they have run out of oil, and that is entirely up to us.”
With Cuba already in danger, Castro’s accusations have sparked a new round of speculation: Is the US about to invade Cuba? Is this the playbook the Trump administration used to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and install a new leadership in Venezuela?
Sean spoke with Shea to better understand how the Cuban government and everyday Cubans think about the United States, as well as what’s next.
The following is part of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so take a listen Today, It’s Explained wherever you get your podcasts, incl Apple Podcasts, Pandoraand Spotify.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted a video last week about Cuba. What did he say?
He spoke Spanish; of course, he is Cuban American. And he said, Listen, Cubans, it’s not America’s fault that you don’t have power, that your power grid is down. It is the fault of your government’s mismanagement. Don’t blame us. Not because of our limitations. It is because you are being misled, and it is time for you to force your government out of power.
That’s a paraphrase, but that’s generally what he said.
Nope. Generally not true.
There is a truth in it that the government has never been a central government. But the reason that Cuba is in the current crisis – which is that there is absolutely no oil for consumers or businesses; they have saved for hospitals and so on – it is the United States that is forcing Venezuela not to export oil to Cuba.
For the last 50 years or so, the United States has ensured that no country – except for a couple over which the United States had no jurisdiction, such as Venezuela – (will) sell oil to Cuba. Now that Venezuela is also not selling oil to Cuba, it means that they have run out of oil, and that is entirely up to us, and any Cuban listening to Marco Rubio’s speech would know that.
What makes this time different? Is it that this administration is ready to go further than the previous ones?
What may be interesting at this point is that Cuba seems ready to handle it.
If we believe the media reports, Cuba has committed to release political prisoners, which would be huge because it would bring political opposition in the country. Cuba has agreed to open its economy. Cuba has agreed to allow Cuban citizens to return to Cuba. Things that we have been asking for decades, now it seems that Cuba is ready to do. And I wish we could win. I wish we would accept these things and then add something: Promise us to have free and fair elections two years from now.
That would make a lot of sense, and we wouldn’t be talking about the military, and we wouldn’t be talking about going in and kidnapping 94-year-old men. And President Trump can finally be what he wants to be. He wants to do what every president since Eisenhower has wanted to do, which is to end the communist-oriented regime that we have in Cuba.
Eisenhower tried; JFK tried. Trump was alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was an adult. So was Biden. This is all true personal history for them.
And I think part of what’s going on is Trump wants to be the president who can accomplish what no other president has done. And I happen to think it might be, but I don’t think it’s going to be in a military way.
He has the attention of the people in charge of Cuba. We have a lot of energy there. The Cuban government these days seems willing to listen to us and do some things that would make us happy. And that is especially true for the younger generation in Cuba: I think they would like to see the government open relations with the United States and move beyond revolutionary Cuba.
So the Cuban government is willing to accept in a way we haven’t seen in decades. Young Cubans want the opening of Cuban society. They want the government to play football. And yet it sounds like you’re saying there’s a good chance the Trump administration won’t agree?
Unless there is a lot going on behind the scenes that no one is seeing, it seems like there would be a lot more talk and takeaways right now, especially if the Cubans release the things the media has been reporting.
I do not understand, for example, the charges against Raúl Castro. He would still not be alive by the time the trial began. He and his family are still heroes in Cuba, especially with the older generation. So why the fuss with the Castros?
What does the diaspora want?
That’s a good question, and what exactly do the big diaspora people want?
Partly because of pressure from us, Cuba began to allow more people to emigrate from Cuba over the past 20 years, and many of them came to the United States. There is some evidence that among the million and a half or so émigrés, they really want to move forward. They have no intention of fighting the wars of the 1960s again.
I think we’ve heard your best case, Cécile – that the United States takes a concession from Cuba and allows that country, on its own terms, to move to free elections that will essentially replace the Castro regime. What is the worst case scenario here?
The worst short-term scenario is that we end up with something worse than what we have now.
The worst long-term scenario is that we further alienate the Cuban people who have already been subject to our embargo and sanctions for the past 60-some years, and it harms our ability to form close ties with a country 90 miles away in the next 20, 30, 40 years.
It is difficult for politicians to look past the next election. It is one of the weaknesses in our government. But we also have to think about what kind of relationship we want with Cuba 15 years from now. Invading a country is not the way to make the possibility of having good relations in the future stable.
You keep talking about this tension between the United States and Cuba as something from another generation – a holdover from, from the ’60s and ’70s, the Cold War. I feel like most Americans right now don’t think about Venezuela or Iran or Cuba. They think about their gas prices and interest rates. How should Americans feel about this intervention that we may soon be carrying out on this island?
Here’s what I would say to some of those Americans: Think we can go two ways right now. Imagine if we could start selling the spare parts that Cuba desperately needs to keep their machines running. Imagine if we could make a deal with them that would allow them to start importing American cars again, duty free. Imagine being able to take a vacation to Cuba again, which is cheaper.
Would you choose all of those things, or would you choose to send more young people down a dangerous path 90 miles from Florida? To be even more of a pariah in the world than we already are? Because if you’ve been to Europe lately or Canada lately, you know that Americans aren’t very popular right now. And imagine what will happen if we take military action in Cuba.
I think we should also talk about the ethics of the situation. There are people who cannot get kidney dialysis at the moment because hospitals are running out of fuel. There are people who can’t get to work and therefore can’t get paid because they can’t put gas in their cars.
These people are only 90 miles away from us. Are we really going to let this kind of pain and suffering continue in the hottest part of the year? Will there be long-term consequences not only for them and their health but for their opinion of the United States? We should not just sit back and watch this happen.
