{"id":216186,"date":"2026-07-07T06:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/castro-heir-wants-a-trump-deal-his-exclusive-first-us-interview-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T06:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T06:40:20","slug":"castro-heir-wants-a-trump-deal-his-exclusive-first-us-interview-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/castro-heir-wants-a-trump-deal-his-exclusive-first-us-interview-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Castro heir wants a Trump deal: his exclusive first US interview – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Puede leer el arti\u0301culo en espan\u0303ol aqui\u0301<\/a><\/em>.
HAVANA \u2013 The corded phone near Rau\u0301l Castro’s desk buzzed inside his wood-paneled office like it was 1984. This time, someone else answered.
Rau\u0301l Castro \u2013 Cuba\u2019s former president, brother to Fidel<\/a> \u2013 was, instead, waiting at home for news from his lunch date: his favorite grandson, his right-hand man.
Rau\u0301l Guillermo Rodri\u0301guez Castro, 42, the man Cubans call \u201cEl Cangrejo\u201d \u2013 the Crab \u2013 is now the one in the seat of power in that very office. Tall and thickset, with piercing light-green eyes, a buzz cut, designer clothes and a deep, raspy voice that echoes his great-uncle Fidel’s, he was too busy at the moment to speak to his 95-year-old grandfather.
\u201cI\u2019ve never been interested in politics. It\u2019s never been a calling of mine,\u201d Rodri\u0301guez Castro said during an exclusive series of interviews with USA TODAY<\/a> over the course of two days in June in Havana. \u201cBut if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it.\u201d He stressed he would never sacrifice the principles of Cuba\u2019s 1959 revolution or the nation\u2019s sovereignty.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro is unknown to many outside Cuba. He holds no formal government office and rarely appears in Cuba\u2019s state media. He had never before spoken to a U.S. media outlet. He is a back-channel operator who has undeniable status, authority and clout \u2013 much of it derived from his last name.
Now the younger Castro is the one in a position to negotiate for the future of his country. The former bodyguard to his grandfather wants to deal directly with President Donald Trump<\/a>.
\u201cI can negotiate with anyone designated by the U.S.,” Rodri\u0301guez Castro said. “If given the opportunity, claro que con Trump.”<\/em> Of course, with Trump.
There\u2019s no time to waste. Cuba faces a cratered economy<\/a>, a humanitarian crisis<\/a> and an oil blockade<\/a> from the Trump administration. It wants to avoid being the next Venezuela<\/a> as the United States levels sanctions and raises a military threat<\/a> unseen between the countries since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro could be the bridge between both sides.
USA TODAY spoke to more than a dozen people who have had personal dealings with Rodri\u0301guez Castro. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because their exchanges were private or they are not authorized to speak on the record.
At the height of their power, Rodri\u0301guez Castro\u2019s grandfather and great-uncle, Fidel, were rarely seen without their olive-green military uniforms. Rodri\u0301guez Castro wore light-blue skinny jeans, a tight, black Hugo Boss T-shirt and Hermes sneakers.
Sitting in his grandfather\u2019s old office atop Havana\u2019s Convention Center, home to Cuba\u2019s parliament, Rodri\u0301guez Castro discussed his vision for the future of Cuba and why he believes he is the one to achieve it.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro only recently emerged from his grandfather\u2019s shadow, but he was groomed for leadership.
He is Rau\u0301l Castro\u2019s eldest grandson, son of the late Gen. Luis Alberto Rodri\u0301guez Lo\u0301pez-Calleja, the man who ran GAESA \u2013 the opaque company run by Cuba\u2019s military that underpins swaths of the Cuban economy.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro grew up in the same building as his grandparents and moved in with them when he turned 18. He spent many of his formative years surrounded by senior regime officials, generals, security officers, intelligence agents and, of course, his all-powerful grandfather. They became his entire world.
\u201cYou know bodyguards and personal security agents? Ever since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by them. It\u2019s all I ever wanted to be,\u201d Rodri\u0301guez Castro said.
But now he has moved beyond boyhood notions of spy games.
Rau\u0301l Castro made sure that from the time his grandson was a teenager, he sat in on every important meeting on Cuban state affairs \u2013 including hours of heated discussions between Fidel and Rau\u0301l. It is for this reason that he developed a second moniker: Raulito \u2212 Little Rau\u0301l.
\u201cHe\u2019s el nieto preferido<\/em>,\u201d said Frank Mora, professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University. He is the favorite grandson.
\u201cRau\u0301l Castro trusted his father, and he\u2019s the grandson he most liked,\u201d Mora said.
Rau\u0301l Castro nicknamed his grandson \u201cEl Cangrejo\u201d because he was born with six fingers on his right hand. The name stuck. He had three surgeries on that hand before age 8. As he spoke, he tucked a misshapen thumb under his four fingers.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro attended Cuba’s state school system and graduated from the University of Havana, where he majored in accounting and finance. He was not, according to the Miami Herald, a good student. (He disputes that assessment.)
He studied in a military school known as \u201cLos Camilitos,\u201d named after the late Cuban revolutionary hero Camilo Cienfuegos. He would eventually attain the rank of colonel in the interior ministry.
Most days he wakes around 5 a.m. For a few hours, he reads classified briefings from Cuba\u2019s interior, foreign and military ministries. He keeps the documents in a leather Salvatore Ferragamo briefcase. He will discuss them with his grandfather later in the day, sometimes over lunch.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro said that he grew up in a loving family and that his grandparents helped forge his character. But, he said, they are first and foremost his compan\u0303eros<\/em> \u2013 his comrades, using the communist term that emphasizes equality, solidarity and common purpose, the ideals the revolution were intended to stand for.
In public, Rodri\u0301guez Castro refers to his grandfather as \u201cMinister,\u201d the role he held longest as head of Cuba\u2019s armed forces for almost 50 years. In private, when he worries about his grandfather tripping and falling, he is simply Abuelo<\/em> \u2013 grandfather.
He said he has a \u201cdifferent understanding\u201d of how his grandfather and great-uncle treated the Cuban people. When Fidel Castro seized control of Cuba from Fulgencio Batista, he built a country with free universal health care and education systems. He also imprisoned entire generations of Cubans, oversaw summary trials, denied them fundamental human rights, nationalized the economy and sent hundreds of thousands into exile.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro said he first read something negative about his family when he was 12. He dismissed it. \u201cI knew these people. They were good people,\u201d he insisted. \u201cThe men who did this Revolution were just \u2013 but they weren\u2019t stupid.\u201d
He spoke of the Cuban revolution and his grandparents with wistful affection, part historical account and part folklore. He speaks of his grandparents the way any doting Cuban grandson might in his idealized version of Cuba.
\u201cMy grandmother was incredibly sweet. She shaped the role women should have in this country,\u201d Rodri\u0301guez Castro said of Vilma Espi\u0301n, a socialite whose father was a Bacardi Rum executive. She fought alongside Fidel and Rau\u0301l Castro in the mountains during the revolution. Espi\u0301n became an influential member of Cuba\u2019s Communist party.
The Crab has children of his own. He has two daughters with his first wife, Sheyla Puentes, and another with his second wife, Daliene Go\u0301mez Toma\u0301s. His third wife, Cuban model Sheila Marin\u0303o, gave birth to their son in June.
\u201cWe knew what his name would be: Rau\u0301l for my grandfather and Alberto for my dad,\u201d he said.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro\u2019s hand unconsciously drifted to his throat as he talked about his family. He untucked a gold chain from under his T-shirt.
\u201cI don\u2019t know if you are a believer,\u201d he said, revealing a gold medallion with the initials \u201cFCR\u201d and \u201cRCR\u201d embossed on either side: Fidel Castro Ruz and Rau\u0301l Castro Ruz.
\u201cIf there\u2019s anything I believe in,\u201d he said, \u201cit is these two men.\u201d
Many aspects of the young Castro\u2019s lifestyle do not sit easily with a communist leader-in-waiting.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro grew up extraordinarily privileged.
In a country that has endured near-constant deprivation for most of the past seven decades, he enjoys a life of private jets, luxury yachts and the freedom to travel, something most ordinary Cubans rarely get to do \u2013 even if he, too, is subject to the Cold War-era embargo.
He earned a reputation as a party boy in his 20s and 30s as he traveled the world as an attache\u0301 to Rau\u0301l Castro. He talked with glee about the round-the-clock vibrancy and bustle of New York City, where he attended Yankee games in premium seats close to the field. (Derek Jeter was his favorite player.) He admired Paris for its romantic flair and cuisine, and he imagines a Cuba where his countrymen could find foie gras on the shelves. He values Moscow for its opulence.
Fidel Castro famously wore two Rolexes at the same time and gifted them to valued military commanders. Rodri\u0301guez Castro wears a stainless-steel version on his left wrist. (Both men are left-handed.)
Rodri\u0301guez Castro made at least 23 private trips aboard a private jet to Panama between 2024 and late 2025, where he was spotted luxury-shopping. This is according to a joint investigation by Panamanian newspaper La Prensa, Venezuelan outlet Armando.Info, corruption watchdog Transparencia Venezuela en el Exilio, and Costa Rica-based investigative journalism unit Centro Latinoamericano de Investigacio\u0301n Periodi\u0301stica.
During one of those trips, he said he was accompanied by Cuban Brig. Gen. Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, who inherited the GAESA empire after Rodri\u0301guez Lo\u0301pez-Calleja \u2013 Rodri\u0301guez\u2019s Castro father \u2013 died in 2022. The United States recently sanctioned her for GAESA involvement.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro, now in his 40s, did not dispute these trips happened. He said he was looking for investment opportunities for his country.
“It pains me that many people can’t live the way I do. It weighs on me how people struggle. And I’m working every day to change that situation,” he said.
GAESA has its tentacles across Cuba\u2019s economy: hotels, real estate investments, construction companies, ports, currency exchanges, customs services and more. Its 2023 revenue reportedly exceeded Cuba’s entire state budget by more than three times, according to leaked financial records published by the Miami Herald<\/a>.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro helps oversee GAESA, has a hand in its operations and acts as a liaison between the organization and his grandfather. Rodri\u0301guez Castro says the most accurate Spanish word for his GAESA role is apoyar<\/em> \u2013 he supports it. He also said it represents a much smaller share of Cuba\u2019s overall economy than is routinely reported, about 15%. He says it goes toward purchasing food, medicine and fuel. (USA TODAY could not independently verify either claim.)
On paper, he controls the security of Cuba\u2019s leaders. Unofficially, he advises on investment opportunities, negotiations and policy decisions \u2013 any area leaders in official roles, such as president Miguel Di\u0301az-Canel, deem necessary.
The Castro family has been linked, through GAESA chiefly, to a lucrative world of hotels, banks, retail monopolies, foreign-currency businesses, foreign private compounds and offshore accounts. Before Fidel Castro’s death at age 90, Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth at roughly $900 million, which he vehemently denied.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro was adamant that he has no wealth of his own. His fashionable clothes, luxury foreign vehicles and expensive overseas trips are all paid for by wealthy friends and admirers, he claims. Few of his critics find that credible.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro also loves the gym. He is a fitness enthusiast and avid weightlifter who says he trains at least six times a week. He says he once worked out on a plane, at 30,000 feet, to the dismay of flight attendants.
\u201cThe Hegseth of Cuba,\u201d one person familiar with Rodri\u0301guez Castro\u2019s commitment to fitness called him. It was a reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who sometimes exercises alongside U.S. troops. Rodri\u0301guez Castro, the person said, projects a similar tough-guy image.
He also likes singing and dancing.
A 2017 video caught him dancing onstage with the popular reggaeton group Gente de Zona in Varadero, a resort town known for its powder-white beaches and its inaccessibility to most Cubans. Rodri\u0301guez Castro can be seen wearing a New York Yankees shirt, moving suggestively to driving percussive beats, punctuated by catchy, syncopated vocals.
The back of his shirt was embroidered with two words: \u201cEl Cangrejo.\u201d
The Trump administration has been coy about who, if anyone, it sees as a credible Cuba interlocutor.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro believes he<\/em> is that person.
He has growing direct and indirect lines to senior American officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a>; well-connected American businessmen; and a multitude of White House hangers-on, such as Victor Mellor, a Republican congressional candidate in Rhode Island who twice traveled<\/a> to Havana in June to meet Rodri\u0301guez Castro. (The State Department said it did not authorize Mellor\u2019s trip.)
All are trying to shape the Trump administration’s Cuba policy.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro speaks with conviction when he discusses negotiating with the White House. He uses his hands vigorously to punctuate points and alternates between a gentle and booming voice. He said he is determined to not throw away the ideology his family fought for. After all it was his grandfather, he said, who chose him for this role.
\u201cHistoric heroes will always have a word,\u201d he said in Havana.
Yet he doesn\u2019t appear to covet political power, said one person who dined with Rodri\u0301guez Castro in Havana several times in recent months. Instead, the source said, Rodri\u0301guez Castro feels he might be the only one who can appease the Americans\u2019 demands for change without giving up the ideals of the revolution.
“Raulito offers them more flexibility because he is a quasi-official. He is a military officer. But his role is much larger than it is on paper,” said Pablo Uchoa, an expert on security issues in Latin America at University College of London.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro spoke with Rubio<\/a> for the first time in January, shortly after the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicola\u0301s Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a dramatic raid in Caracas. Thirty-two Cuban soldiers working security for Maduro were killed in the raid. Rodri\u0301guez Castro said he knew many of them and was shaken by their deaths.
He faced Rubio<\/a> in St. Kitts a month later, followed by a discussion in April at Havana\u2019s Convention Center with Jeremy Lewin, a State Department official who until recently was in charge of all U.S. foreign assistance \u2013 Rubio’s de facto Cuba envoy. Rodri\u0301guez Castro was also in the room when CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana<\/a> in May.
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on dozens of companies<\/a> linked to the Cuban government, and senior regime officials and their families, from the president on down.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro, tellingly, has not been sanctioned.
That appears by design. In the wake of the U.S. military strike on Venezuela, the Trump administration bet that Rodri\u0301guez Castro could be the one to broker economic and political change, said Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan organization of Cuban-American leaders that advocates for reconciliation with Cuba. A former U.S. official confirmed the Americans have quietly been vetting Rodri\u0301guez Castro for months as a potential go-between.
Herrero argues that the United States chose to negotiate with Rodri\u0301guez Castro over Alejandro Castro Espi\u0301n, Rau\u0301l Castro\u2019s only son, who led Obama-era negotiations during a brief rapprochement Trump has since scaled back. This way, Herrero said, a new deal wouldn\u2019t appear to be \u201cObama 2.0.\u201d
“This administration has helped create Raulito,\u201d Herrero said. \u201cHe\u2019s been able to achieve consensus among the different bands within the Cuban state in favor of a market opening. But that’s not enough for those around Rubio who want to see political change, not just economic change.\u201d
By contrast, no one from the Trump administration has directly engaged with Cuba’s president, Di\u0301az-Canel \u2013 the first person without a Castro name to occupy that role. Rodri\u0301guez Castro insists he is in concert with Di\u0301az-Canel, whom he affectionately calls \u201cMiguelito\u201d \u2013 Little Miguel \u2013 and they are on the same page.
Cuba is holding up its end by undertaking what it considers significant and historic reforms to its state-run economy, Rodri\u0301guez Castro said. On June 18, Cuba’s leaders unveiled a plan, not yet ratified by its parliament, \u200bwith more than 170 sweeping measures that would \u200bprivatize a vast swath \u2060of its socialist economy \u2212 reforms Rodri\u0301guez Castro used his clout to push through. The most obvious concession is compensating Cubans and Americans whose assets were confiscated during the revolution.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro also claims that despite what Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration say, Cuba is not a national security threat to the United States nor a state sponsor of terrorism. He also said the country is willing, under the right conditions, to release “people deemed political prisoners.” Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based legal-defense organization, puts the number of political prisoners in Cuba today at more than 1,200<\/a>.
\u201cThe truth isn’t an absolute,\u201d Rodri\u0301guez Castro said.
The U.S. State Department publicly described Cuba’s moves as window dressing.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro witnessed his grandfather sign the accord with the Obama administration. He believes this makes him uniquely qualified for the current moment.
Most important, Rodri\u0301guez Castro isn\u2019t his grandfather.
In May, the U.S. Justice Department indicted<\/a> Rau\u0301l Castro for a 1996 incident when Cuban military jets shot down two Miami-based civilian planes. Three U.S. citizens and one Cuban national were killed in the attack. Rau\u0301l Castro was Cuba\u2019s armed forces minister at the time.
The man in Hermes sneakers took a different approach to diplomacy.
In mid-April, Rodri\u0301guez Castro sent a secret letter to Trump<\/a> that resembled a formal diplomatic communication stamped with an official Cuban seal, according to two people close to the Trump administration, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
It was intended to be a back-channel missive. The letter outlined proposals for economic and investment cooperation, and it requested that the United States drop sanctions on Cuba. It cautioned that the Cuban government was ready to resist any U.S. military action.
The plan hit a wall when the letter was intercepted by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at Miami International Airport. The agent confiscated the letter, carried by Cuban businessman Roberto Carlos Chamizo, and sent him back to Havana. It is not clear whether Trump was ever made aware of its contents.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro and Chamizo, his friend, denied to USA TODAY that the letter was intended for Trump.
But it is one of many signs he is trying to drag Cuba into a fresh U.S.-Cuba relationship.
Meanwhile, Rodri\u0301guez Castro has shown himself a negotiator.
In mid-June he personally backed a fuel deal with Vanguard Energy, a Coral Gables, Florida-based firm that trades fuel in the Caribbean and Latin America, two people close to the lobbying effort confirmed.
The deal would not have satisfied Cuba’s spiraling energy needs. It did represent a lifeline.
The White House blocked the deal at the 11th hour over objections to using energy storage facilities owned by Cuba Oil Union, or CUPET, the country\u2019s largest government-controlled oil company. Rubio sanctioned CUPET on June 11, the day the deal was announced.
But the episode underscored Rodri\u0301guez Castro\u2019s ability to sign deals between the United States and Cuba. It also demonstrated that his influence is limited by the most senior U.S. decision-makers on Cuba, such as Rubio, who takes the general view that there is no such thing as a private sector in Cuba, according to person familiar with the matter.
In early June, Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee he hasn\u2019t found a Cuban official who could lead a “transition” to a government pliant to U.S. interests similar to the role played by Delcy Rodri\u0301guez in Venezuela, that nation\u2019s U.S.-approved acting president.
\u201cI really don’t believe this system is capable of reform, unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold,\u201d Rubio said in his testimony.
The Castros intend to pass down Cuba from one generation to the next, like a family ranch, according to one person familiar with the Trump administration\u2019s views on Cuba.
Some Cuba watchers are skeptical Rodri\u0301guez Castro could assume a leading role in the official government. They argue Cuba’s system of overlapping institutions is designed to prioritize consensus over individual leadership. One senior official familiar with Cuba\u2019s internal political dynamics agreed.
“He has no official position in their government. Cuban officials are very transparent on the people who represent the government,” said Illinois Rep. Jonathan Jackson, a progressive Democrat who visited Cuba in April to meet with its senior officials.
Jackson does not see Rodri\u0301guez Castro as a significant U.S.-Cuba power broker.
“Raulito is powerful. He has access. He’s someone the White House can talk to. [But] he can’t operate outside Cuba’s political framework,” said Uchoa, of University College London.
There is also the question of what happens to Rodri\u0301guez Castro\u2019s authority when his grandfather dies.
Rau\u0301l Castro retained his power by his proximity to his brother, Fidel. History shows family successions, whether in North Korea or Syria, tend to happen through rigid authoritarian control, with the transfer of power underwritten by whoever controls the military.
Cuba’s top military official, Gen. A\u0301lvaro Lo\u0301pez Miera, 82, has been fiercely loyal to Rau\u0301l Castro, with whom he fought alongside as a teenager during the Cuban revolution. It’s not clear what Lo\u0301pez Miera thinks about his fellow revolutionary\u2019s grandson.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro \u201cis the avatar for Rau\u0301l Castro and holds a lot of power while his grandfather is still alive,” said Mari\u0301a Jose\u0301 Espinosa, executive director of the Washington, DC-based Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas.
That connection got Rodri\u0301guez Castro in the room. He won\u2019t discuss details of his negotiations with Washington, but he is wise to the difficulties of the situation, he said, speaking from his grandfather\u2019s office \u2013 an office that is now his own.
He was surrounded by beige pleather armchairs gathered around low tables adorned with silk flowers. A painting of silhouetted galloping horses hung behind him, an appropriate motif for a man who counts hunting and riding among his hobbies.
It was quiet inside the office, except for the steady hum of a window air conditioner. Beyond its walls, much of the building sat in darkness.
Lights had been switched off to conserve electricity amid fuel shortages that have gripped Cuba since the beginning of the year. It lent the vast Havana Convention Center an almost abandoned stillness. A political palace for one.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro entered through the back door of El Antojo restaurant in Old Havana several days later, flanked by bodyguards.
Again he wore light-blue skinny jeans, this time with a tight white Dolce & Gabbana T-shirt and matching designer sneakers.
A DJ played dub lounge music as Rodri\u0301guez Castro tucked into a leather sofa in El Antojo\u2019s third-floor cigar room, a restaurant where the Cuban dish ropa vieja<\/em> costs 4,200 pesos \u2013 about two-thirds of what most Cubans earn in a month. It\u2019s where he recently met with businessman Mellor, the aspiring Rhode Island lawmaker.
\u201cSientate, mi corazon<\/em>,\u201d he told a waitress standing at attention, urging her to sit.
No cigars were smoked. But Rodri\u0301guez Castro held court for more than five hours, evoking Fidel Castro\u2019s long, late-night meetings.
Outside, Old Havana\u2019s dark streets stretched for miles. Cubans strolled along el Paseo del Prado promenade in the inky night, desperate to escape the stifling heat of their homes. They clustered around hotels, searching for a Wi-Fi signal for their smartphones.
El Floridita and Sloppy Joe\u2019s, tourist destinations made famous by American novelist Ernest Hemingway, sat dark and shuttered.
Inside, Rodri\u0301guez Castro sipped an Aperol spritz, then moved on to a California red wine not on the menu. Fidel Castro taught him to drink wine, he said, as he munched on chicharrones<\/em> \u2013 fried pork chunks \u2013 squeezed with lime. By the end of the night, Rodri\u0301guez Castro was singing a Nicky Jam song a cappella.
His vision for Cuba, he said, is \u201cso much prosperity it\u2019s hard to imagine.\u201d
Cuba\u2019s model will be \u201cinnately Cuban,\u201d he said, even when it draws from China or Vietnam, two countries that evolved from Soviet-style economies and underwent successful, if not perfect, capitalist transformations.
\u201cSoon,\u201d he said, the people of Cuba \u201cwill find all the things they seek in other countries.\u201d He did not elaborate.
As he left the restaurant, a stranger strolled up and gave Rodri\u0301guez Castro a hug.
\u201c\u00a1Mi sangre!<\/em>\u201d the man called out. My brother. My blood. \u201cI know that with you in charge, the lights will return to Havana.\u201d
It\u2019s clear Rodri\u0301guez Castro is a major player in an unfolding drama with an outcome that has eluded every American president since 1959: a new dawn for Cuba.
Rodri\u0301guez Castro may or may not ascend to the very top of Cuba\u2019s official power structure. He may not be able to make the deal both sides want. But in one sense, he is already in charge.
In meetings with senior Cuban officials, they defer to him. When he enters a hallway, people stand at attention. At a restaurant, his table is the only one occupied.
And when he walks down the street, Cubans stop what they’re doing and follow Rodri\u0301guez Castro with their eyes.<\/p>\n

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