Yves here. I wish I had the time to research and unpack more clearly is the set of legal theories the US is abusing to prosecute Nicholas Maduro and his wife and now to justify the arrest of Raul Castro and the conquest of Cuba. The US seriously takes the position that we can impose (strained invocations of) US rules against terrorism and engage in extrajudicial seizures, as in kidnapping. The article below describes how we are now putting a lot of weight on the thin reed of enforcing Batista-era property rights.
By Natasha Bannan, a human rights attorney based in Havana and New York. She is also a co-chair and co-founder of the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect. Originally published at Common Dreams
These days, most of Havana’s streets are fairly empty of cars, but full of people walking or riding bicycles, electric bikes, electric “tricycles,” or scooters. Trash has piled up on most corners where regular pick-up has become impossible given that the garbage trucks have no gasoline. The average conversation starts off with comparing who’s gone the longest without electricity. The sympathy flows, as you exchange stories of what else you are going without: water, gas, food, medicine, transportation. People list the family members they haven’t been able to see and the medical appointments they’ve missed. Inevitably, someone will say better days are coming—“because they have to”—and to keep moving forward.
This week alone, the US Department of Justice indicted Raul Castro, the former head of state, who’s now 94 years old and largely out of public life. In addition, the Supreme Court gave a green light to Cuban-American-owned companies with property claims in Cuba from 67 years ago to sue tourist industry actors who “profited” from that land. Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to grow more and more publicly agitated with Cuba’s refusal to bow to his demands, and Trump’s consistent incoherence shows an absolute lack of any clear policy position towards Cuba, aside from one that may economically benefit him and/or his family.
The indictment of Castro is a page taken from Trump’s playbook on Venezuela from earlier this year. There, the administration indicted a sitting head of state, Nicolas Maduro, as a legal pretext for a military intervention, which was labelled an “emergency” and thus not an act of war that would require Congressional approval. The administration staged a geopolitical coup d’état involving international kidnapping, acts of war in plain violation of international lawand the U.N. Charter, and then imprisoned that leader as a message to the world of what happens to those who defy US interests. Such indictments serve as purportedly fixed legal fictions for shifting political pretexts. In Venezuela it was supposedly the state’s support for criminal enterprises and gangs, which was the justification for the Trump administration’s stated reason for the extrajudicial killing of nearly 200 civilians in piracy actions in the Caribbean. Once Maduro was kidnapped and jailed, the administration has stopped talking gangs and narcotrafficking rings.
In Cuba, the Justice Department’s indictment of Raul Castro is a clear response to the political forces that commanded it. As the island nation is not complying rapidly enough to the changes demanded by Washington, the administration has escalated its threats, military preparations, and legal actions, albeit largely symbolic in nature.
Rubio’s Escalation of Threats as Campaign Messaging
For decades, Marco Rubio has pushed for privately what the Cuban-American community in south Florida has not achieved in nearly 70 years: to run Cuba’s political and economic system remotely from Miami and Washington. These remote “owners” of Cuba have driven and financed Rubio’s political career, leading to this moment where he is adamantly (though unsuccessfully) trying to sell the American public that Cuba is a national security threat while simultaneously telling Cubans that their government is too weak to protect them. That inherent contradiction and incoherence, long the basis of US policy towards Cuba, have never been more dangerous than at this moment when Rubio’s rage and blind ambition to cause widespread destruction is bolstered by Trump’s monarchical goals.
The contradictory discourse is present in nearly every aspect of Cuba policy. Just this week, Rubio issued an Orwellian statement in response to the ICE arrest of Adys Lastres Morera, the sister of the head of GAESA, a Cuban entity that is connected to large swaths of the Cuban economy. Rubio was right to point out that “[f]or far too long, the family members of terrorist organizations, repressive anti-American regimes and other bad actors . . . have been given a free pass to enjoy the privileges of living in the United States,” but the United States also has a long tradition of granting sanctuary to terrorists, dictators, and war criminals. In particular, Latin American leaders, generals, and intelligence operatives that have long done the US bidding in propping up violent regimes have been granted refuge in south Florida, the home of Rubio and other elected officials who have promoted violence over diplomacy.
Yet what makes international cooperation, collaboration, and survival possible is not just insisting upon respect for international law and human rights by all governments, but strengthening their ability to do so through dialogue and diplomacy. The Trump-Rubio administration has clearly not been serious about using diplomacy to solve global conflicts, and that holds true in Cuba as well. The administration has tried to identify potential “opposition” I Cuba or political leaders it can “work with” like Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela. Real US diplomacy looks quite different. Twelve years ago, it brought to Cuba a boom of economic activity, a thriving private sector, better financed public institutions, and riveting cultural exchanges for over a million US residents who found in Cuba a rich cultural, musical, artistic, and academic partner.
Trump and Rubio, though they might articulate the same goals, have different ulterior motives. Their goal is not, and has never been, economic opportunity for Cubans. Instead, they want an economic boon for Cuban-Americans aching to exert political and economic control over a land many have never even visited. Although Florida no longer plays a significant electoral role in US-Cuba policy, Rubio’s recent video talking to the Cuban people—and his messaging in general in escalating threats and aggression towards Cuba—is clearly intended to rally his base. What has caused widespread anxiety and fear among millions in Cuba has nevertheless excited his political base in south Florida.
Inside Cuba
These days in Havana, Cubans are experiencing a duality that has existed for generations who have lived under the threat of US military aggression and the daily reality of economic warfare. Cubans are exhausted. They are increasingly anxious and have reached the bottom of the well of hope. There is a saying that the last thing you lose is hope, meaning it is what you hold on to until the very end. Cubans are at the very end of their ability to see a hopeful future.
I get asked questions daily. Should I take my kids to a shelter? Will the United States bomb Havana? Where is it safe to go? Why don’t US citizens stop their government?
Cubans are experts at survival, and that’s exactly what they continue to do. As US Southern Command sends the aircraft carrier Nimitz into Caribbean waters, Cubans continue to carry on with daily life like they have done decade after decade. Most days, those around me look for an electric tricycle to take them to work or their child to school or have added a child seat to their bicycles. Cars that run on gasoline have become what one of my friends calls “garage adornments.”
Given the daily threat of military intervention and the four-month long oil blockade, activities like sleep have become a luxury. Many families cook or wash clothes at 3:00 a.m. when they get 1-2 hours of electricity. My friend sleeps on the floor with her son near the front door where air drafts can keep them cool in the sweltering heat and humidity. Most of us go without water for days at a time because lack of electricity makes pumping and distributing water impossible. Another dear friend went 35 days with no water while she, her mother, and her toddler spent weeks traveling from house to house bathing and washing clothes. Cooking and cleaning become infinitely more difficult with no water, gas, or electricity. Some daycare centers use coal to cook lunch for undernourished children.
While we live under the perpetual threat of US military aggression, children continue to play in the street with sticks and deflated balls, families continue to find ways to get to work and buy food, and the deep spiritual and religious traditions that sustain many Cubans are turned to over and over again. War has a name and a face. It’s not just a vague “government.” Here there are millions of people who owe the United States nothing and instead have only demanded to live in peace, in their homeland, however flawed it may be.
Thanks. There was even a Fast and Furious movie made in Cuba back during the Obama partial thaw. It would be nice if the USA could have that Cuban social solidarity, but instead our middle class mount never taken down in the rain American flags in front of their houses and get back to their smartphones. True civic engagement is vanishing rather than becoming great again and public self absorption is part of what allows the bad motive special pleaders from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to thrive.
Still polls, when they are taken, say a majority of Americans want us to leave Cuba alone and stop the genocide in Palestine. Feelings of empathy may become supercharged when we too have no gasoline.
It will be much worse when diesel gives out as trucks need it to run on to deliver things like food to supermarkets and medicines as well. And then there is farming…
I’ve been to Cuba twice and both times was impressed with how well Cubans work together. They’ve got solidarity, which is a concept virtually unknown in the USA. The article above gets into how that solidarity is helping Cubans survive the present crisis. Marco Rubio and Trump are not going to break that solidarity. If the US invades I expect the Cubans to give the world a demonstration of solidarity with a ruthless guerilla war that will be the fiercest waged against the USA since the Viet Cong did it 50 plus years ago.
Also, Cuba has something in common with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran — tunnels. If I remember correctly, after the triumph of the revolution Cuba built a network of tunnels to serve as bomb shelters in case of a US bombing campaign.
Official Cubans should stage a governmental strategic retreat, abdicate jurisdiction, eschew political power and beg the US to send their proconsul in to run the place, clear the path for the grandchildren of the exiles who fled with Batista because the revolution had no advantage for them and generally welcome the corrective capitalist lessons which will be taught – after a decent interval of submission and kowtowing to the hegemon – attack with full fury, take hostages and generally make life bloodily miserable for US imperialism. The first victim of this justice must be the proconsul from Trump – who ever the joker is.
Thanks, Natasha!
I lived in Orlando and Miami for much of my adult life. In Miami, I worked downtown, where almost all the food places were Cuban. We had a ritual of heading to the local cafe around 2pm for a Cuban coffee (thee best).
To me, the economic sanctions are worse than a military invasion. Imagine if the world decided to do that to Americans. Other than Israel (which I have my doubts about), who else would come to our aid after two full years of Trump?
And, the world won’t let us survive unless we, the people, oust the Trumpian Crime Family. How reasonable is that?
The Castro family military elite and GAESA have been developing tourism as the primary source of foreign revenue for decades, operating hotels across the island to line their own pockets. The GAESA elite have become billionaires funneling their wealth abroad. Cuban people are meanwhile used as slaves to serve the guests and clean rooms for 15 dollars a month. This enterprise is totally dependent on the wealth of capitalist countries which allow their own citizens the basic freedoms of commerce. While the Cubans have no such freedom and are slaves to the corrupt socialist regime and the GAESA oligarchs. This source of wealth would not exist without the economic freedoms that are denied to the Cuban people. It’s hypocritical and evil. Raul Castro ‘el chino’ deserves to die in prison. It’s too bad the psycholpath Fidel was not brought to justice before his death.
Viva Marco Rubio! Cuba libre!
I think you’re on the wrong site. Gaesa is a government private enterprise run by the Cuban armed forces and is used to secure hard currency to purchase goods that Cuba could not get otherwise, because of US sanctions. The main reason for which ordinary Cubans are poor is because the country’s biggest trading partner has effectively blockaded it for 60 years. And yes, I’ve been there, traveled across the country (it’s beautiful) and talked to ordinary Cuban farmers, workers, professors, doctors, soldiers, young hipsters and also Gaesa workers I met in the one tourist hotel I stayed in. All of them supported the Revolution but yes, in private said that they wanted better material things in life. But they do not want the Miami contingent to come back to re-establish the mafia state of pre-revolutionary time. Viva Cuba.
Looks like a Gusano came out of the woodwork. Need to call pest control
I personally hope Nicholas Walsh enjoys his coffee and goes to Cuba just in time to be caught up in the counter attack by the very brave and competent Cuban guerilla ( ask the South African racists) who I trust won’t disturb his love of Cuban coffee! Sorry wrong coffee lover! – Smekens should go too!
Rubio can’t even claim his family fled Castro. His father came to the US years before the revolution. Rubio’s just another hack taking the easy path to win elections and bow down to the oligarchs like the Fanjuls and Cicilias who are responsible for his ‘success’. You know, employing little Marco when he was a teen in their drug running pet shops.
https://prospect.org/2025/12/23/narco-terrorist-elite-rubio-south-america-iran-contra/
You could be a paid troll, you could be willfully or blindly ignorant or you could just be an idiot.
I caught part of a Terry Gross, “Fresh Air” on the blah blah driving driving driving out in Bumphuc.
Obama speechwriter, part of team negotiating the vacated Iranian agreement, and lead negotiator with Cuba on the Obama “Cuba thaw”. Obama got a lot wrong, but some was worthy?
Lost the signal, so missed the entire deal, but it was quite a listen.-
https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/g-s1-124468/fresh-air-for-may-27-2026-former-obama-advisor-discusses-iran-and-american-identity?showDate=2026-05-27
Tangential non-sequitur:
Marco Rubio apparently was born on US soil of non-American, non- US Citizens.
Will that preclude him from run for Pres, or serving as Veep (succession in case POTUS perishes)?
Hope So! If not, the irony and/ or paradox of Trump / MAGA persists and deepends.
He already ran for president in 2016
Re: “Trash has piled up on most corners where regular pick-up has become impossible given that the garbage trucks have no gasoline”
I hope someone in Cuba reads NC and can share this (bicycle garbage collection):
https://youtu.be/JahXgey1sK4?si=I71RiV84O2hNa2MN
But seriously, this is an amazing opportunity for an entire country to wean itself off the economy of oil and set an example for the rest of the world. We struggle to think how, but the Cubans will necessarily need to solve the problems we’d also need to solve – especially given their remarkable medical proficiency, since to my mind any switch away from oil would need to solve for things like plastic IV bags, plastic syringes, etc.
(And yes, someone a few years back on NC pointed out that we used to have glass and metal syringes.)
Yeah, I recall how my great-grandfather told how happy they were when Karl Benz started making those internal combustion engines, because finally there was a way to collect all that garbage that was just everywhere and nothing could be done about it…
(In jest, of course. See: “rakers”, as garbage collectors were called in London in 1350 or so…)
Any attempt to evade the sanctions by Cuban cleverness and resilience will simple expand the assault by the hegemon – you say they have bicycles – where will they get the tires and bicycle air pumps – not if Trump Invictus has any say in it!
I have said many times here and elsewhere…Cuba can be the first nation to embrace hemp oil and give fossil fuels the boot.
Maybe bioplastics manufacturing, once reaching economies of scale, would become more cost-effective to produce and replace many types of petrochemical plastics. Of course in the absence of petrochem, even if higher cost, bioplastics could be very attractive.
Hemp, sugarcane and other bio materials readily grow in Cuba. Mountains of plastic trash would be largely eliminated due to the biodegradable bioplastic. I have no expertise in this, just hopeful speculation
In the larger context of US lawlessness, massive and multiple war crimes, atrocities, support of genocides etc. any legal fig leaf that the US attempts to use to disguise yet more crimes is yet more tragic humor
The Unhinged Emperor has openly admitted he does not care about the law, does not care about the American people, and his words and actions show he does not care about human life at all. The Mask is Off, the US, no matter who is in power, does not abide by the law or treaties, it is incapable of agreement. Sadly, that means only brute violence can be an effective defense against lawless aggression and mass murder.
“Do what we say, or we murder all of you!” is the clear message being sent
I admire how prof. Marandi often includes Cuba when discussing US war on Iran. Cuba can be seen as part of the global Resistance. The Cubans, Yemenis, Lebanese, Iranians and Palestinians can be seen as having much in common in this way. Now that Venezuela has been neutralized, Cuba is arguably the only country in the Western Hemisphere that is independent of the US.
Fantastical wishful thinking: a coalition of nations, led by Russia, would sail a convoy of ships loaded with fuel, supplies etc. to Cuba to break the siege. Would the unhinged US attack multiple nations at once? Given the US imperial overstretch, now would be the time to push back against US atrocities. (again this is wishful as the unhinged US could do even more reckless and dangerous escalation)
Any attempt to evade the sanctions by Cuban cleverness and resilience will simple expand the assault by the hegemon – you say they have bicycles – where will they get the tires and bicycle air pumps – not if Trump Invictus has any say in it!