Bernd Deboosman

Major earthquakes are relatively rare in Venezuela.

And U.S.

For NPR News, I'm Manuel Rueda in Bogota.

The indictment itself is symbolically extremely important here in the United States.

There are many Cuban exiles and Cuban-Americans, particularly in South Florida, that feel extremely strongly about the Castro family, both Raul and his late brother Fidel.

And for them, it's very important that there at least be this suggestion that he could be brought to justice.

Now, whether he actually faces these charges is a different question entirely.

Of course, the U.S.

could go in and seize him.

And just this afternoon, Senator Rick Scott made the suggestion that they do so, as they did with Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in January.

But of course, that has humanitarian implications, launching a

military operation on an island that's already suffering from massive shortages.

And of course, Raul Castro is turning 95 years old on June 3rd.

So any operation to seize him, of course, has to take into account that he's an elderly man, which makes it much more complicated than it was in the case of Maduro.

He did say there won't be an escalation.

But then in a subsequent statement from the White House, the president vowed that the U.S.

wouldn't tolerate what the White House described as a rogue state just 90 miles from American shores.

There's very, very much been essentially a maximum pressure campaign on the island, which is seen, for example.

The US threatened tariffs on countries that trade fuel to Cuba.

That's led to the massive energy and fuel shortages that we've seen, which have been the most significant in decades.