This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on May 20, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
As the US Justice Department indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro on Wednesday in what could be a prelude to military action, the Cuban government denounced the US for “cruel and ruthless aggression.”
The 94-year-old Castro, who served as Cuba’s leader until 2021 after taking over for his brother Fidel in 2008, was indicted on one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals for his alleged role in the shooting down of planes operated by the anti-Castro Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue in 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four Cuban Americans.
“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said as he announced the charges at Miami’s Freedom Tower. “My message today is clear: The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens.”
While Blanche described the four men as “unarmed civilians,” the Cuban government said the group had repeatedly violated its sovereign airspace and that it had warned the US government before shooting down the plane.
Declassified documents from a month before the incident show that officials in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) viewed the Brothers’ activities as “taunting” and feared the Cuban government might shoot a plane down.
“Is a sovereign state like Cuba obligated to tolerate illegal and continuous incursions into its territory? Under no circumstances,” the Cuban embassy in the US said in a statement published on Wednesday on social media. “International law and global civil aviation conventions protect the sovereignty of nations over their airspace.”
“When formal warnings to the [International Civil Aviation Organization], the FAA, and political authorities are sustainedly ignored, the defense of borders and national security becomes an unavoidable duty for the protection of the country.”
✈️🇨🇺 MythBreakers: Exposing the Brothers to the Rescue hoax
— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) May 20, 2026
Is a sovereign State like Cuba obligated to tolerate illegal and continuous incursions into its territory?
Under no circumstances. International law and global civil aviation conventions protect the sovereignty of… pic.twitter.com/p9UC0shT95
The indictment comes as the Trump administration issues threats that have been widely interpreted as signals that another military regime change operation could soon be on the horizon, following the administration’s attacks on Venezuela and Iran already this year.
“CUBA IS NEXT! Thank you [President Donald Trump] and [Secretary of State Marco Rubio]!” cheered US Rep. Carlos Giminez (R-Fla.), one of many Miami-based politicians who have called for aggressive action by the Trump administration against Cuba in recent days.
He was responding to a video posted by Rubio on Wednesday directed at the Cuban people in which he again denied that the crippling oil blockade imposed on Cuba by Trump bore any responsibility for the economic ruin the island’s population currently faces.
After effectively cutting off Cuba’s primary supplier of oil in January when the US conducted its illegal operation to abduct Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, Trump threatened to impose steep tariffs on any country that provided oil to Cuba, scaring off its other main suppliers, including Mexico, Russia, and Algeria. Last week, Cuba’s energy minister announced that the country had “absolutely no fuel oil, no diesel.”
🇺🇸🇨🇺 pic.twitter.com/nwEePVJ1lX
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 20, 2026
But Rubio told the Cuban people in Spanish on Wednesday: “The reason you are forced to survive 22 hours a day without electricity is not due to an oil ‘blockade’ by the US. As you know better than anyone else, you have been suffering from blackouts for years. The real reason you don’t have electricity, fuel, or food is that those who control your country have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.”
He specifically laid the blame at the feet of the accused, the military-run company Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), founded by Raúl Castro in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The company has come to control large swathes of the Cuban economy, from hotels and grocery stores to gas stations and banks, and is estimated to control between 40-70% of Cuba’s overall economy, according to a recent New York Times report—though the secrecy of the organization makes it difficult to determine its true value.
Rubio said that the entrepreneurs running GAESA “have $18 billion in assets and control 70% of Cuba’s economy,” which was first reported by the Miami Herald last year based on balance sheets obtained from the company. But the Cuban government and other critics have disputed this figure, arguing that it actually refers to Cuban pesos, which would make its holdings closer to about $746 million.
Regardless, Rubio omitted any mention of the fact that even prior to the oil blockade enacted in January by Trump, the US still had a strict trade embargo in place against Cuba for more than 60 years, which the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America has estimated cost the country more than $130 billion since it was imposed—more than the total gross domestic product of the entire country in 2020.
Rubio said on Wednesday the US was ready to open a “new chapter” with Cuba, but that the thing getting in the way was “those who control their country.”
Rubio now full Orwellian: the total blockade that we have put on your country after decades of an embargo has nothing to do with the scarcity in your lives or the fact that we are intentionally starving your children. https://t.co/OLLHJfyo3E
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 20, 2026
In light of Trump’s persistent suggestions that he wants to “take” Cuba and “do anything I want with it,” the Cuban government described Rubio’s message as one meant to justify further US coercion.
“The reason why the US secretary of state lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously when referring to Cuba and trying to justify the aggression to which he subjects the Cuban people is not ignorance or incompetence,” said Carlos Fernández de Cossío, the deputy minister for foreign affairs in Cuba, in a social media post on Wednesday. “He knows full well that there is no excuse for such a cruel and ruthless aggression.”
Last week, the US offered to give Cuba $100 million in humanitarian assistance to deal with the crisis it has imposed through its oil blockade, but only if it agrees to “meaningful reforms” and “fundamental changes” to its government that would allow greater access to US companies.
Cuba’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, contended that an easier way to alleviate Cuba’s suffering would be “by lifting or easing the blockade, as it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced.”
Update (2:00 pm ET): This story was updated to include comments from acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche following the announcement of a formal indictment on Wednesday.
The financialization of the American electoral process is well documented. Now two key progressive legislators are proposing a new law to do something about it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Democratic Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12) introduced the Abolish Super PACs Act on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. It’s a measure they say will eliminate one the primary ways billionaires funnel cash into elections: super PACs. The bill would limit donations to super PACs to $5,000 for both individuals and corporations.
“Today, the average American gets one vote. Billionaires, however, through their super PACs, can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect the candidates of their choice and to defeat candidates who stand up for working families or a just foreign policy,” Sanders said.
The measure is necessary, Lee said, to save a democratic process that is under strain from unlimited sums of money poured into elections by billionaires and corporations.
“Our bill would ensure that millionaires, billionaires, corporations, corporate interests, special interests would no longer be able to get around the guardrails, the limitations that everyday individuals like you and I have,” Lee said.
A super PAC, or political action committee, is an entity that can currently raise unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, and unions. It can spend that money to independently support or oppose candidates, including through advertising and other election-related expenditures.
Candidates cannot formally coordinate with a super PAC. But that limitation is often skirted, leaving the wealthiest Americans with disproportionate influence over electoral outcomes.
Both Sanders and Lee pointed to the fallout from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision in 2010 as a key motivator to overhaul current election laws sooner rather than later. Since the controversial ruling opened the door for unlimited outside spending on elections, corporations and billionaires have turned to super PACs to unleash a barrage of spending.
“I don’t want people to think this is just another issue. It is a more important issue,” Sanders said at the press conference announcing the bill.
“We are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare. Why is that? You think it may have something to do with the power of the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies who spend millions of dollars making sure we don’t move to a Medicare for All system?”
“This is an issue that touches on every single issue facing working people in this country,” said Sanders.
Billionaire Elon Musk used his America PAC to pour roughly $288 million into Trump’s and other Republlicans 2024 presidential campaign.
The Abolish Super PACs Act comes as a smaller and wealthier group of donors fund a growing proportion of campaign spending. The New York Times reported that just 300 billionaires and their families accounted for 19% of all federal campaign spending in the US in 2024, much of it funneled through Super PACs. Before the Citizens United ruling, contributions from billionaires made up only 0.3%.
“It corrupts, it discourages, I call it functionally disenfranchising the political process from every aspect, from every angle,” Lee said.
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