![\"Raul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-05-23T165230Z_811476155_RC2CELA4FH9Y_RTRMADP_3_CUBA-CRISIS-PROTEST.JPG\" "\\"Raul")
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Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, known as “El Cangrejo\u201d, grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, attends a pro-government rally in Havana called by Cuban authorities to protest U.S. policies toward the island, including the indictment of Raul Castro. The blurred figure is Cuba\u2019s formal leader Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel.<\/p>\n
Norlys Perez<\/p>\n
REUTERS<\/p>\n
During back-channel negotiations earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed an energy deal to Cuba that would have secured American investment in the country\u2019s deteriorated energy infrastructure and a steady supply of U.S. oil to an island plagued with blackouts.<\/p>\n
But Cuba\u2019s hesitation and Miami politics stood in the way of closing the deal, a source with knowledge of the discussions told the Miami Herald. The person asked not to be identified to speak about the sensitive matter.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration recently locked in a deal with Venezuela\u2019s government, headed by interim President Delcy Rodriguez, securing access to massive oil reserves. The agreement, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would steer Venezuela away from U.S. adversaries like Russia and China, whose companies held those oil fields and kept them unproductive.<\/p>\n
The deal with Cuba, while much smaller in its scale, the source said, would have sent \u201cshockwaves\u201d throughout the Cuban government establishment, as it was also tied to a demand that the country\u2019s handpicked president, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, seen as an incompetent figurehead by Trump administration officials, leave power.<\/p>\n
It would have given the United States significant sway over the country as Cuba\u2019s main oil provider, aligning with President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cDonroe\u201d Doctrine of U.S. influence in the Western Hemisphere, the source added.<\/p>\n
In discussions with Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s grandson, Col. Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Castro, U.S. emissaries told him Cuba could secure the oil it needed from the United States if the government would agree to privatize CUPET, the country\u2019s state-owned energy company.<\/p>\n
CUPET has refineries, storage facilities and gas stations. The service stations are managed by CIMEX, the largest umbrella company in the military conglomerate GAESA. Whoever buys CUPET would be buying its business: importing and distributing gasoline in Cuba.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-01-29T021047Z_149013856_RC2RZIA76SGH_RTRMADP_3_USA-VENEZUELA-CUBA-OIL.JPG\" "\\"2026-01-29T021047Z_149013856_RC2RZIA76SGH_RTRMADP_3_USA-VENEZUELA-CUBA-OIL.JPG\\"")
A fuel truck from Cuba’s state oil company CUPET refills a gas station in January. Norlys Perez REUTERS <\/p>\n
The timing of the offer was key.<\/p>\n
On January 3, U.S. forces had captured Venezuela’s strongman Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, shocking the world and Cuban leaders, who had sent people to protect him. Thirty-two Cuban military officers died that day.<\/p>\n
With Maduro gone, so was the oil he was sending to Havana for free. Then, a few weeks later, in late January, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency related to Cuba and threatening tariffs on the island\u2019s oil suppliers. Mexico stopped sending oil too. Experts believed the island\u2019s oil reserve would run out in a matter of weeks.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the Trump administration stepped in with its proposal: Cuba wouldn\u2019t need to worry about oil because the United States would provide it. As a sign of the administration\u2019s interest in Cuba\u2019s energy sector, it authorized the sale of U.S. oil to Cuba\u2019s private entities<\/a> in February.<\/p>\n Ideally, the Trump administration wanted U.S. investors to fully control CUPET. But the Cubans had doubts about a deal that would make Cuba wholly dependent on a U.S. company for its oil. The Trump administration\u2019s emissaries also discussed other possibilities, such as acquiring CUPET through a joint venture with the Cuban government and bringing in investors from other countries.<\/p>\n Any of those options would also have required settling property claims against CUPET by ExxonMobil; the U.S. Supreme Court allowed ExxonMobil\u2019s lawsuit over Cuban property seized by Fidel Castro\u2019s government to proceed against CUPET and CIMEX in June.<\/p>\n For Cuba, the energy deal would have solved a major problem and spared the population months of relentless blackouts that now last days at a time.<\/p>\n Cuba\u2019s communist government had always depended on a foreign patron, first the Soviet Union and later the socialist regime in Venezuela, for its energy needs. The country can produce only 40% of its consumption needs, so blackouts have been common in recent years. Its dilapidated electrical grid has been collapsing regularly since 2024. Soviet-era power stations and old refineries, whose technology predates the Cuban revolution itself, frequently break down because the government has not invested in modernizing them.<\/p>\n While Cuban leaders were mulling over the proposal, Axios learned of secret negotiations led by Ra\u00fal Castro\u2019s oldest grandson on the Cuban side. The Herald reported on a February meeting between Rubio\u2019s advisors and Castro\u2019s grandson in St. Kitts and Nevis. The Herald also reported that the administration wanted D\u00edaz-Canel out. A USA Today story claimed the administration was only interested in economic deals with Cuba.<\/p>\n Miami Cubans pushed back<\/p>\n The reaction in Miami was swift.<\/p>\n Incredulous Cuban exiles and local Cuban American Republican politicians questioned how Rubio could be negotiating with a member of the Castro family.<\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez told Telemundo 51 in March that reports of negotiations were \u201cfalse\u201d and that Rubio was not talking to Castro\u2019s grandson.<\/p>\n Also in March, U.S. Rep. Mario D\u00edaz-Balart told the Miami Herald<\/a> that the Trump administration was not actually negotiating with members of the Castro family but was having “the kind of conversations they had with Maduro,\u201d he said, referring to talks with Maduro about his possible exit before he was captured. He told Telemundo there was no \u201cimmunity agreement\u201d with the Castros.<\/p>\n It was a line that U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar also repeated in an April congressional hearing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Cuban people deserve freedom, not another deal to keep the same regime in power,\u201d she said. \u201cI made it clear: no negotiations with the Castro family to preserve a dictatorship. The future of Cuba must be decided by its people, not a dynasty.\u201d<\/p>\n They also expressed fear that the administration wanted to replicate what had happened in Venezuela, where Trump\u2019s deal with Maduro\u2019s former vice president Rodriguez has left most of the old chavista regime structure in place, at least for now.<\/p>\n In Havana, the government reluctantly agreed to liberalize its economy somewhat, but its reform package was received with skepticism by experts and the Trump administration alike. There was another major roadblock in the negotiations: Rodriguez Castro\u2019 \u2014 known colloquially as El Cangrejo, the Crab \u2014had said privately that he, with his grandfathers\u2019 blessing, was open to all sorts of economic reforms and deals with the United States, but the U.S. government could not dictate how Cubans were governed, a person who met him said. The person asked not to be identified to speak about the sensitive matter.<\/p>\n In a few words: the Castro family was not leaving power, nor, apparently, D\u00edaz-Canel.<\/p>\n Still, Castro\u2019s grandson, described by the source with knowledge of the CUPET deal as \u201ca loose cannon,\u201d also came out damaged from the whole affair. Because he holds no public office, his role in the negotiations, which prompted a flurry of profiles exposing his luxurious lifestyle, also sparked unusual open criticism on the island.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, D\u00edaz-Canel had comfortably adopted a discourse of \u201cresistance\u201d against U.S. pressure, likely to please hardliners in Havana too.<\/p>\n At the end, \u201cthe Cubans were not there yet,\u201d the source with knowledge of the negotiations said, speaking of the CUPET deal.<\/p>\n The administration also seemingly abandoned its initial approach, doubling down on a sanctions\u2019 strategy that pleases hardliners in Miami.<\/p>\n On May 7, Rubio imposed sanctions on GAES<\/a>A, the military conglomerate whose company CIMEX runs the service stations. On May 20, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Ra\u00fal Castro for the killing of four men in the 1996 shootdown of a plane belonging to the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue. Then in June, Rubio finally sanctioned CUPET, accusing the island\u2019s communist leaders of \u201chaving weaponized energy\u201d to control the population and for their own \u201ckleptocratic\u201d benefit.<\/p>\n Last Tuesday, the Trump administration also imposed sanctions on two CUPET-related entities.<\/p>\n \u2018No progress\u2019<\/p>\n Without oil since January, except for a Russian oil tanker delivery in March, the Cuban government now blames the U.S. for the island\u2019s blackouts. Speaking to reporters in Spanish during a trip to Colombia on Tuesday, Rubio blamed the Cuban government instead.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason Cuba is facing an oil shortage is that Venezuela no longer provides them with free oil,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cThey used about 30% for their own needs and then resold the rest for cash\u2014and that has come to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe second reason,\u201d he added, \u201cis that they were already experiencing power outages before that. Even with Venezuelan oil, Cuba has suffered multiple blackouts over the last three or four years because it didn\u2019t invest a single cent in its own energy infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Cuba\u2019s foreign minister said there were open communication channels with the U.S. State Department, but the conversations \u201cshow no progress.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been no negotiations\u2014nor are there any at this moment\u2014and there are no agendas or roadmaps,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite the stalemate, U.S. investors seem poised to take over assets left by foreign companies that have left the island fearing U.S. sanctions. Two rival groups backed by U.S. investors are bidding to take over Canada\u2019s Sherritt International\u2019s stake in a mining joint venture<\/a> with the Cuban government. Cuban officials have signed off on the takeover, a person with knowledge of the discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak of the matter told the Herald.<\/p>\n U.S. oil is also flowing to Cuba, just not in the amount that\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n According to figures compiled by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, U.S. companies have exported $157 million in fuel to Cuban private entities through July this year.<\/p>\n
![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789044370_847_IMG_87_Nora_Gamez_Torres_2_1_QUBULALR_L329712315.jpeg\")