Castro heir wants a deal with Trump for Cuba's future: 5 takeaways
Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro, is poised to begin negotiating with the U.S.
In his first interview with a U.S. media outlet, he told USA TODAY exclusively that he is ready to deal directly with President Donald Trump.
Although not an elected official, the 42-year-old man known as Raulito or Little Raul, wields much power to navigate the future of his country.
USA TODAY sat down with Rodríguez Castro for several exclusive interviews that took place over two days in June in Havana. This is the first time a member of the Castro family has sat down for a profile in 70 years.
Here are our takeaways:
Rodríguez Castro is a negotiator
He has growing direct and indirect lines to senior American officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and well-connected American businessmen.
In mid-June he personally backed a fuel deal with Vanguard Energy, a Florida-based firm that trades fuel in the Caribbean and Latin America, two people close to the lobbying effort confirmed. While the deal would not have satisfied Cuba's spiraling energy needs, it represented a lifeline.
The White House blocked the deal at the 11th hour. The episode underscored Rodríguez Castro's ability to sign deals between the United States and Cuba.
Cuba will remain independent
Rodríguez Castro stressed that he would never sacrifice the communist principles of Cuba's 1959 revolution or the nation's sovereignty.
"But if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it," he says.
Trump administration hasn't sanctioned Rodríguez Castro
The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on dozens of companies linked to the Cuban government, and senior regime officials and their families, from the president on down. Rodríguez Castro has not been sanctioned.
The United States chose to negotiate with Rodríguez Castro over Alejandro Castro Espín, Raúl Castro's only son, who led Obama-era negotiations during a brief rapprochement that Trump has since scaled back so a new deal wouldn't appear to be "Obama 2.0."
He discusses Cuba's political prisoners
Cuba is not a national security threat to the United States nor a state sponsor of terrorism, Rodríguez Castro says. And 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
Cuba is undertaking what it considers significant and historic reforms to its state-run economy, Rodríguez Castro said. On June 18, Cuba's leaders unveiled a plan, not yet ratified by its parliament, with more than 170 sweeping measures that would privatize a vast swath of its socialist economy. The most obvious concession is compensating Cubans and Americans whose assets were confiscated during the revolution.
Cuba is ready to change its economic model
His vision for Cuba, he said, is "so much prosperity it's hard to imagine," Rodríguez Castro said.
Cuba's model will be "innately Cuban," 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.
"Soon," he said, the people of Cuba "will find all the things they seek in other countries."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Castro heir wants a deal with Trump for Cuba's future: 5 takeaways
Reporting by Laura Trujillo, Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, Rick Jervis, Francesca Chambers, Nick Penzenstadler and Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
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This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 5:41 PM.