{"id":206568,"date":"2026-03-26T07:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206568\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T07:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T07:30:19","slug":"miami-dade-county-mayor-warns-against-backroom-castro-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206568\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami-Dade County mayor warns against backroom Castro deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Miami-Dade<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is warning against the Trump administration forcing political change in Cuba without requiring the Castro family to relinquish power, both official and unofficial.<\/p>\n

Pedro Portal<\/p>\n

pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade\u2019s Democratic mayor this week said that any real political change forced on Cuba by the Trump administration must leave the Castro family fully out of power.<\/p>\n

\u201cReports of secret negotiations with Raul Castro\u2019s grandson concern me deeply,\u201d Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said in a video address<\/a> posted Tuesday, referring to the Trump administration\u2019s alleged confidential talks<\/a> with Havana that first leaked in early February. \u201cSwapping one Castro dynasty figure for another is not transition. It is continuation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her release of the video coincided with a \u201cCuba Libre\u201d rally Tuesday in Hialeah that had multiple Republican speakers, including the city\u2019s mayor and Alex Otaola, a Cuban American YouTube host who is leading a recall effort against her<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In her taped remarks posted on social media, Levine Cava was offering preemptive criticism should a Trump-brokered deal not include the Castro family relinquishing their unofficial authority over the Cuban government.<\/p>\n

The elder Castro took over for brother Fidel Castro, who died in 2016. Raul Castro is considered still effectively in charge of Cuba<\/a>, despite stepping down from the presidency in 2018 in favor of the nation\u2019s current official leader, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel.<\/p>\n

Levine Cava is in the middle of her second and final term as county mayor, a position she first won in 2020. She\u2019s also the first Miami-Dade mayor in 30 years<\/a> not to be Cuban American. The prior mayor, Carlos Gimenez, is now the only Cuban-born member of Congress.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Gimenez said Secretary of State Marco Rubio told him the reports of \u201csecret negotiations\u201d with Col. Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodriguez Castro were inaccurate. He also said Levine Cava was mirroring a position Gimenez himself has already made public \u2014 and one shared by the vast majority of Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have made my position very clear on this,\u201d Gimenez said. \u201cThe regime must go. I also believe the community will not accept a role in post-Communist Cuba for any Castro.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her video, delivered in English and Spanish, Levine Cava said Miami-Dade\u2019s Cuban American population \u2014 the largest in the United States \u2014 has waited far too long for freedom in Cuba.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor generations, our community has carried the pain of separation, repression and lost freedom,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd today as Cuba stands at an historic crossroads, we must be absolutely clear about what the Cuban people deserve. \u2026 Not a regime swap. Not another Castro, by blood or by proxy, handed power in a backroom deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is warning against the Trump administration forcing political change in Cuba without requiring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[94742,88946,588,94743,123,125,124,23416],"class_list":{"0":"post-206568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-castro-family","9":"tag-cuba-transition","10":"tag-daniella-levine-cava","11":"tag-hialeah-rally","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-headlines","14":"tag-miami-news","15":"tag-miami-dade-mayor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}