Chapter 1: What bold action did the Trump administration take against Cuba?
It was about a week ago that the Trump administration took maybe the boldest action against Cuba that we've seen since the end of the Cold War. An indictment of Raul Castro, brother of Fidel. That's a big deal. And then the biggest question became, are we about to invade Cuba? What is the president planning? What does his long weekend look like?
People kept asking Trump if he was going to attend his large adult son's wedding. A person I've known for a long time. And he was like, probably not. Uh. He'd like me to go. And then he definitely didn't go. So people were like, here we go. Cuba's next. But then that didn't happen either. In fact, the United States started bombing Iran again.
But Cuba's still in a tough spot, arguably the toughest spot it's been in since the Castros took over in 1959. So we're going to ask what could happen next on Today Explained.
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Estar escuchando a Hoy Explicado. Today Explained.
Patrick Oppmann is CNN's Havana bureau chief. I am in Havana right now, yes. What's going on in Havana right now? So, you know, most of this island most of the time is in a blackout. And even if you had a generator, there's absolutely no water. Oil to be had. When I could find gas here, it cost about $300 to fill up my car. Wow. You know, before you had really long lines at the gas station.
Now there are none because there's just no gas to be found. So, you know, I have about a quarter of a tank once that's up. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And on top of all of that, revolutionary Raul Castro was indicted by the United States a few days ago. Yes.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Raul Castro's indictment?
So this is last week. Raul Castro is the former president of Cuba, but that really doesn't do him justice. He's still very much the most powerful man at 94 years old on this island. So 30 years ago, there was an incident where you had Cuban-American planes that initially started out trying to spot Cuban rafters in the water, trying to escape Cuba by raft.
And then they transitioned to this mission, which of course they should have known was going to end badly, where they were flying into Cuban airspace and scattering leaflets. And the Cuban government warned the U.S. many times during the Clinton administration, Stop them from doing this. It's really angering us, violating our airspace. And then finally, they were shot down.
The Clinton administration is calling for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council after two civilian aircraft were shot down by Cuba yesterday. The aircraft were part of a routine private search and rescue operation in the Florida Straits. A third plane flown by Brothers to the Rescue founder Jose Basulto managed to escape the attack. Smoke.
perhaps even fire in it to our north side of our aircraft, some perhaps seven miles away from where we were. And after that, there was complete silence from both aircraft.
There was, you know, kind of no warning given. And these are planes that were unarmed. And that led to an increase in U.S. economic sanctions.
Castro's Air Force shot down two civilian planes belonging to a Cuban exile group in Miami. President Clinton retaliated by signing the Helms-Burton bill into law.
Finally, let me say, as I sign this bill into law, I do so in the name of the four men who were killed when their planes were shot down. Armando Alejandra, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Pena, and Pablo Morales.
And for many years and many administrations, because Raul Castro was head of the military then, the defense minister, many U.S. administrations have kind of thought about indicting Raul Castro for this. And most of them thought, you know, too long ago, it is a sovereign state and they have the right to protect their country. It happened in international waters, is what the U.S. has always said.
Today, we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro... and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.
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Chapter 3: What is the current situation in Havana?
So if that's possible all around Cuba, why is that not possible inside of Cuba?
And we need to see some changes in terms of foreign policy as well. You need to kick out the Russians and the Chinese who the U.S. alleges have spying bases here, spying on the U.S. Stop allying with countries that don't have our same interests in mind. And the Cuban government has said, You don't get to tell us what to do.
The whole point of having a revolution is that we decide our own destiny. And so you've seen a ratcheting up of pressure. And the latest step in that has been indicting Raul Castro. And I think this is the best case they had. It's certainly a long time ago, but it gives them the opportunity to say, OK, the next step is we try to come and get Raul Castro like we did with Nicolas Maduro.
And if you don't think we can, you're in for a nasty surprise. Nicolas Maduro currently resides in Brooklyn at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Is that the plan for Raul Castro, who's not in power technically and is even older than President Trump? He's 94 going on 95 momentarily here. Raul Castro is 94. We saw him on May Day, which, of course, has a lot of significance in Cuba.
Viva nuestro Raul! Viva! Hasta la victoria siempre!
Patria o muerte, vencerá!
And, you know, he looks exactly what you'd expect someone in 94 to look like. And so are you really going to send in the U.S. special forces, you know, that have to bring a wheelchair with them? I think. Is it worth it? It's such an extreme policy in that, you know, you're obviously risking U.S. lives. Beyond that, you're also risking.
The potential, which has happened so many times in the past in Cuba, which is you spark a migration crisis. The Cuban government, for all its faults, has said that they want to negotiate. They want to sit down and that they're open to make certain changes to their system without there needing to be military action.
Clearly, the Trump administration just does not feel that they are operating in good faith. And I think there are people in the Trump administration who simply see this is quicker, this is easier, and we'll get what we want, which is regime change.
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Chapter 4: How does the U.S. view its relationship with Cuba?
People feel that it's really going to happen now. I think the fact that a president, a former president of theirs, who's named Castro, has been indicted, I think that's the clearest sign that there is going to be military action. We've really seen the Cuban officials sort of shut down in terms of talking about negotiations, of talking about finding a solution to this.
I've heard about them passing out guns to people who are not military, but are trusted people, you know, in the Communist Party and saying, OK, you know, here's a pistol. And if you've seen an American soldier, shoot them.
But, you know, when you're dealing with power outages, and it's not a one-time thing, it's every day that are 20, 22 hours, sometimes stretching several days, you know, it's like you're living in a different century. It's no way to live. Everyone kind of looks like a zombie these days.
All we talk about here amongst my colleagues, my friends, Cubans who are friends of mine, is like, is this really going to happen? How would it play out? Is it a limited engagement like we saw in Venezuela? Or is it something much larger? Because if you... knock out the government here, then you're kind of just dealing with another failed state in the Caribbean like Haiti.
And who picks up the pieces of that failed state, particularly one where everything is broken down over the last so many years since the fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba needs a ton of investment, and it's not clear who's going to step up and put the billions of dollars in this island that they would need to have a working power grid and other things like that.
You know, it certainly doesn't appear to be the Trump administration that has always been against kind of nation building, and they would need a lot of nation building here, particularly if you took out the government that, while it's barely functioning, it's still functioning, it's still running the show here, and it's the only government that anyone who's here has ever known.
It feels like regime change could go one of two ways in Cuba. We're gonna weigh the pros and cons of each when Today Explained is back. Support for the show comes from Quince, of course. You might be looking to update your wardrobe, not because you don't like the way you dress, but the fact that you want pieces that feel easy, comfortable, and still put together. That's where Quince comes in.
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Chapter 5: What pressure is the Trump administration putting on Cuba?
It's the fault of mismanagement by your government. Don't blame us. It's not because of our embargo. It's because you are badly led.
And it's time for you to pressure your government to step down. That's a paraphrase, but that's generally what he said.
Is that generally true? No, it is not generally true. There is truth to it in that, yes, the government has not always been a great government. It has a closed economy. But the reason certainly that Cuba is in the current crisis, which is that there is no oil at all for consumers or businesses, they've reserved some for hospitals and the like. But the reason for this is the U.S.
is forcing Venezuela not to ship oil to Cuba.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump severed the island's access to its primary petroleum sources in Venezuela and Mexico, the Cuban government has brought in emergency measures to ration what fuel is left and ease blackouts that are affecting everything from homes to hospitals.
Cuba's at the end of the line. They're very much at the end of the line. They have no money. They have no oil. Now, for the last 50 years or so, the U.S. has ensured that no country other than a couple that the U.S. didn't hold sway with, such as Venezuela, we insisted that other countries not export oil to Cuba.
So now that Venezuela is also not exporting oil to Cuba, it means that they're out of oil. And that's completely on us. And anyone in Cuba listening to Marco Rubio's speech would have known that. What does make this moment different? Is it that this administration is willing to go further than previous ones? What could be interesting about this moment is that Cuba seems ready to deal.
Earth Social. No Republican has ever spoken to me about Cuba, which is a failed country and only hedging in one direction. Down! Cuba is asking for help and we are going to talk. In the meantime, I'm off to China.
if we believe the press reports, and again, they're just press reports, but if we believe the press reports, Cuba has offered to release political prisoners, which would be huge because it would create a political opposition in the country. Cuba has agreed to open its economy. Cuba has agreed to allow Cuban exiles to invest back into Cuba.
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Chapter 6: What concessions is Cuba reportedly willing to make?
Yeah, please do. Is it what the diaspora wants? So that's a good question. And is it in particular what the older diaspora wants? In part because of pressure from us, Cuba began allowing more people to emigrate from Cuba over the last 20 years. And a lot of them came to the U.S. And there's some evidence that among that million, million and a half or so emigres, they really want to move forward.
They're really not interested in fighting the wars of the 1960s anymore. I think we've heard your best case scenario, Cecile, that the United States takes concessions from Cuba and allows the country on its own terms to transition to free elections that, you know, organically replaces the Castro regime. What's the worst case scenario here?
So the short term worst case scenario is that we end up with something worse than we have now. The long-term worst-case scenario is that we further alienate the Cuban people who have already suffered from our sanctions and our embargoes for the last 60-some years. And it harms our ability to create a close relationship with a country 90 miles away over the next 20, 30, 40 years.
It's hard for politicians to look past the next election. It's one of the weaknesses in our government. But we should also be thinking about what kind of relationship we want Cuba 15 years from now. And invading the country is not a way to make the odds of having a good relationship in the future strong.
I mean, you keep talking about this conflict, this tension between the United States and Cuba as something from another generation, like a holdover from the 60s and 70s, the Cold War. I mean, I feel like most Americans right now are not thinking about Venezuela nor Iran nor Cuba. They're thinking about their gas prices and interest rates.
How should Americans be feeling about this intervention that we may soon be executing on this island? Here's what I would say to some of those Americans. Imagine we could go two routes right now. Imagine we could start selling spare parts that Cuba desperately needs to keep their machines running.
Imagine we could make an agreement with them that would allow them to begin importing American vehicles again, tariff-free. Imagine that you could take vacations to Cuba again, which are fairly inexpensive. Would you choose all of those things? Or would you choose sending more young people into harm's way 90 miles away from Florida, being 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 are very unpopular right now. And just imagine what will happen if we take military action in Cuba. I think we should also talk about the morality of the situation. There are people who can't get kidney dialysis right now because the hospitals are running out of oil.
There are people who can't get to work and therefore can't get paid because they can't put gas in their vehicles. These people are just 90 miles away from us. Are we really going to let this kind of pain and suffering continue through the hottest part of the year? And what will be the...
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