← The Watch Floor with Sarah Adams
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Mr. Castro and the others are charged with additional crimes as well, including destruction of aircraft and four individual counts of murder. The indictment was returned by a grand jury sitting in this district in Miami on April 23, 2026, and was unsealed today. For nearly 30 years, 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice. On February. This is a story all too familiar. On February 24, 1996, two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue were shot down over international waters by military aircraft from Cuba. Four men were killed. Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandra Jr. Mario de la Pena, and Pablo Morales. They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of of people fleeing oppression across the Florida Straits. As alleged in the indictment, Raul Castro and five co defendants participated in a conspiracy that ended with Cuban military aircraft firing missiles at those civilian planes and killing four Americans. Those are the allegations returned by a federal grand jury. My message today is clear. The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens.
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So the foundation, at least for the moment we're in, is this case from 1996, and it was two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue. And in this case, you know, four of these pilots were killed, three were U.S. citizens, and then one was like a legal permanent resident in the U.S. and he also was Cuban. So the United States is alleging that Raul Castro, who was then, at the time in the 90s, he was the defense minister in Cuba, that he authorized and ordered this lethal force against these two airliners, which were humanitarian in purpose. So the charges include conspiracy to kill US Nationals, four counts of murder, and then destruction of an aircraft. This is not your conventional prosecution scenario, obviously. Raul Castro is 94 years old. He's in Cuba. He's not in our custody. When you look at the legal dimensions of this, it's more symbolic. That distinction matters because this is opening up and becoming this function that's geopolitical tool. And it's not exactly like a courtroom instrument, so don't view it that way. So this is just the US now taking different strategy against Cuba. Cuba's constantly facing inflation. They have energy shortages. And then of course, they have limited access to capital. Now another big concern is, of course, migration pressure. There's this sustained outward, at least a tent of migration from Cuba to the United States. And this is like an extra pressure valve. And it's of course a political signal that the people in the country don't have the government that they want Another thing is, of course, this institutional control. It's been the single party leadership system since the revolutionary period, and it hasn't collapsed, but it's been this chronic stress. And then that stress, as you can imagine, gets absorbed in the most predictable of ways. They tighten control on their people. They selectively engage with who they feel like in the outside world. And then there's a lot of issues then with stability and kind of other breaks within society that occur. The last key piece is their strategic external alignment. This has long been a problem for us, and it's a point where you can apply pressure, of course. So Cuba continues to maintain political, economic and security relationships with actors who oppose the US Right. They've long done it with Venezuela before this recent shift. But of course, Russia, China and Iran. And these relationships have provided those regimes diplomatic cover, intelligence cooperation opportunities, economic lifelines. And it's allowed kind of Cuba to have this strategic relevance in the Western peninsula. Another thing being from the CIA, is we have these constant concerns and questions about Havana Syndrome. And, hey, did the Cuban government allow a foreign government, likely the Russians, to come on their soil and target Americans? We. We don't want that occurring and being allowed to occur. And of course, we also want to learn how this technology is working, who exactly is behind it so we can stop this harm to our people. So there are a lot of big issues. So Cuba's not exactly operating like Cold War Cuba as the proxy it used to be in the old traditional sense. But these alignments allow their government to kind of offset some of the isolation pressure we put on them, and it gives our adversaries a little bit of a foothold closer to the United States. And that is, of course, something we don't want to occur, and one of the main reasons we got involved in Venezuela. So why does this case matter now? I think some people get lost when you hear 1996, but there's such an understanding of what the Cuban people have gone through for so many years that the majority of Americans know this isn't about a case in 1996. It's about thinking of a new pathway forward for Cuba. So there are a few overlapping, though, explanations. One is this accountability doctrine. So some crimes involving U.S. citizens remain legally and politically active regardless of time. So think of it like there's no statute of limitations or on the downing of these aircraft. So that gives us a lot of political leverage to use it. In this case, there's also this concept of strategic signaling. It's saying, hey, we're setting a boundary within that boundary, there needs to be legitimacy and acceptable behaviors. And then there's this concept of pressure layering, and that's, hey, if we put sanctions, depending on diplomacy, legal actions, we can put these all within the pressure architecture. And then that's not one lever, right? We're pushing multiple levers to see if we can affect the system in some way. So, you know, when this airliner was down, these two airliners were down. For example, you know, the embargo had been since the 1960s, but it wasn't really codified until this happened, was this interesting thing. Now they're using this again because this could be the catalyst that really reopens Cuba up again to United States and hopefully up again as a friendly partner in a friendly nation. Of course, this is why we're involved, and this would be the best pathway forward. Of course. I want to thank today's sponsor, Mindful. Many of you know, I worked with Sean Ryan and his team, and when he told me he was launching a sparkling water, I was quite curious about what makes it different. What I like is that it's simple. It's just highly carbonated water with Celtic salt. It's unflavored, it has no sugars, no sweeteners, no artificial ingredients, and zero calories. The Celtic salt provides natural electrolytes and the carbonation gives it a clean, crisp taste that's refreshing without all the extra junk thrown into our drinks. Today, I've been keeping a few around when I'm working, traveling and recording and spending easy whey to stay hydrated throughout the day. If you're looking for a clean, sparkling water with natural electrolytes and. And nothing unnecessary, check out Mindful by Sean Ryan. Now, I'm going to talk about a piece that nobody really brings up when you talk about Cuba, but it's incredibly relevant. And it's the fact that if you want to understand Cuban policy up in dc, you cannot separate it from Florida politics. So just the migration patterns and history alone, of course, make it a top priority in Florida. And then it's the Florida advocacy that makes it relevant in D.C. we have to remember there's also this hidden driver. First off, there's this massive Cuban American base in Florida. Florida is not just a swing state, it's also a strategic state. And so the Cuban voters, particularly in South Florida, Florida have had a lot of influence when it comes to elections. So in our congressional races, in the presidential elections, in our foreign policy positioning towards Cuba. So for decades, this community has been very consistent as a political force and it also helps shape our hardline stance to Havana. And this isn't just ideological, it's structural through turnout, organization, geographic concentration. They get involved, they don't just complain. There's a problem, they're constantly looking for solutions to it and people who can help affect that change. And I think that's why we're seeing someone like Marco Rubio lead on this front, because of course, he's from within this community. He's long had a piece of this base and he understands the, the long term strategic implications of not having an ally in the Cuban regime. Another thing is migration is kind of this political accelerant. And it's really that every massive wave of Cuban migration to the United States has really echoed in our politics, because migration is not abstract. This is why so many want to bring in migrants one way or another. Because it does affect. Affect politics. It just does. So key historic waves. The Cubans came in, of course, post 1959, the revolutionary migration, and then the Mariel boat lift in 1980. Then in the 1990s, we had kind of this massive economic migration cycle happening. And then of course, we have these modern surges again due to mostly problems within the economy. I want to talk a little bit then about how this creates a policy inertia, because it's a key mechanism to understand. Even when the executive branch of our government attempts to shift Cuban policy towards either, let's say engagement or normalization, they run into a counterweight because there is a domestic political cost and that cost happens at the ballot box. It's just the best way to put it. You don't really get this linear policy change. You get this constant movement and change and fluctuations in our policy. That's why we never have one standard, single continual policy against Cuba. We have different engagement efforts depending on the party. We saw that under Obama's administration. We have partial reversals and then tightening of things like sanctions. And then we have selective reopenings and different relationships, government to government. This creates something that analysts like to call policy pendulum locking. You have a little bit of movement, but because your policy's always changing, you never actually move forward. We see this in a lot of policy issues. One party comes in, they have one view, the next party comes in, they reverse everything, and you really never make progress or move forward. And I think we're getting to the point. It's like, hey, we can't have these conflicts that go on for decades and decades. We have to come up with some sort of solution or some sort of positive future forward, right? Venezuela is an issue. Iran, which we might not get to that point. And now we're having the same thought process with Cuba. Now back to migration for a minute, we talked about how it's like a pressure point, but it's also leverage. And we have to keep that in mind. So you can use it as like a strategic variable is the best way to put it. So first off, it definitely signals instability in Cuba and there's no way around that. There's no way of saying the people are happy there. It also creates this humanitarian and broader pressure on the US and then it influences the, you know, this domestic political urgency. So migration is simultaneously a humanitarian issue, but it's also a domestic political issue. And then it's this foreign policy constraint. It's really kind of one of the things that, you know, came to a head with Venezuela. And there are a few there, and there are only a few places, you know, in the Western Hemisphere where we combine all of that so tightly. And so Cuba is unique in this sense. Now let's talk about why this matters for the Castro indictment. This indictment, of course, didn't occur in a vacuum. And it's happening inside a policy environment where Cuba is politically sensitive, of course, especially to a key US State being Florida. There's less and less tolerance to have enemies so near our coast. There's this issue that, hey, we have to do something about migration flows. No matter the country, no matter the region, there needs to be a pathway forward because we brought in too many migrants and we technically can't actually afford it. And there's a lot more issues that come with it. Lastly, there's this kind of a historical memory. It's like politically active, not dormant. Right. These movements, the Cubans who want to free Cuba, are in the fight every day now. There's a number of US Policy options moving forward. And we're not here to guess what the administration is going to do, but let's just talk about some of the things. Of course, we could just do hard pressure and that's more sanctions, kind of more this legal accountability, start charging other people and then a continued diplomatic isolation. Now, it doesn't seem like that's the way we're leaning, especially because we did have CIA Director Radcliffe down in Cuba. So it's an interesting thing. It just doesn't seem that's the route. Another is this concept of a managed containment. So this would be like working on, well, we need to have some sort of low level stability in Cuba. We need to have limited engagement, but no structural change. Now, we've seen a little bit of this, but I still think we're one step above this. So I think we're in the next phase, which is a continual engagement. Here you have a phase, and it's tied to relief. And when you give relief to a nation, especially one in such an economic hardship, it really can lead to measureable reforms. So we just saw the US government offered. It was, I believe, 100 million in aid, and the Cuban government reportedly decided to accept it. That's a really interesting thing when we're looking at this option. I think this is the phase we're in now. The next step up then would be full normalization. Of course, not there yet, but that would be broad economic and diplomatic reopening. You start making mous together, work on trade deals, et cetera. Then the last, and I guess the dream scenario would be a regional transition model. And so this is where you get multiple Latin American countries involved, and we work together to do a managed, phased kind of transition framework where you open up Cuba, not just the United States, but to the entire region, and they become just part of the partnerships, be it trade, obviously, the sanctions go away, travel and tourism reopens, all of that. Right. They're just another player in the Western Hemisphere, and they're on the side of the good guys, is the best way to put it. So those are options for the United States. But of course, we can't completely control Cuba's internal trajectory. You know, we wish we could. We just can't. So there are a lot of things we don't know answers to. But we know Cuba cannot fully escape their external economic and political pressures. Right. They have a big problem, and there needs to be a solution. And Cuba is not capable of putting together the entire solution themselves. Even if they went with the countries that aren't allied with us, they still need to eventually have relationship with players in the region. That is kind of the future of how they rebound. And then Florida's role in this is going to ensure that Cuban policy is never solely foreign policy. I mean, this really is at the state policy level, and it's viewed that way by Florida, and the rest of the country actually has to see it that way. So the question isn't exactly what's the ideal outcome for Cuba? The question is, what outcome or outcomes are politically sustainable over time? What will actually work? Because a little temporary opening of some tourism like we did prior isn't enough. Cuba still has this huge economic crisis, so there needs to be a real plan in place that leads to a positive outcome and not a two year outcome or a four year outcome by election cycles, but something that they can be at least some sort of cooperative partner. You know, we can meet the needs of the exile community here and we cannot have this constant fear of them, you know, allying with our enemies. The indictment of Raul Castro isn't like the center of this story, but it's signaling something going on in the much larger system because Cuba, US relations are shaped by these overlapping forces. We have history, strategy, and then domestic politics, especially in Florida. And when those forces interact, policy does not at all move in straight lines. That's what we've seen over and over. It kind of moves in these cycles. So the real question isn't what happens to this 94 year old leader, it's what's this kind of long term equilibrium look like between the United States States and Cuba and how can we actually affect that? Do we do it with pressure? Do we do it kind of with containment? Do we use engagement? Is there some sort of structured path forward? How do we get them to be more stable? How do we basically open up a friendly Cuban government as a neighbor? Because in the end, Cuban policy is not just about Cuba. It's how the United States manages its proximity, especially to forces that might not be aligned with us. It's how they manage memory or at least bringing justice to Americans. And then it's how they work through the political consequences that comes with all of this. And if you can manage all that at the same time, we might finally have a real Cuban strategy. Thanks for being here today on the watch floor.
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