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Mariela Castro Espín, director of the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) and daughter of Raúl Castro, called President Donald Trump a "ignorant pedophile" and accused the U.S. government of recruiting mercenaries within the Cuban LGBT activism to create a fictitious opposition.
According to statements collected in a YouTube video lasting over 44 minutes, recorded during the Nuestra América Convoy's visit to CENESEX in March 2026, Castro directly attacked the U.S. president by referring to what he called "political fundamentalisms" driven from Washington.
"From its own president, who is also a pedophile who should have been condemned a long time ago. How dare he disqualify the work of feminisms and the efforts surrounding the rights of LGBT individuals in the most just way possible?" he pointed out.
He went further and added: "Trump, who is profoundly ignorant and knows nothing about politics, much less about human rights, repeats any nonsense that he is told every 5 minutes and changes his narrative every 5 minutes."
The statements were made in front of leftist activists from over 30 countries who arrived in Havana between March 18 and 24 as part of this international convoy, organized by Progressive International, of which Castro is a member of the Advisory Council.
The most controversial segment of the speech was the direct accusation against independent LGBT activism in Cuba, which Castro characterized as an operation funded by Washington: "They have come, they have recruited people here to pose as if they were an opposition, but a fictitious opposition, a mercenary opposition invented for money."
With that statement, Castro disqualified the LGBT activists working outside of CENESEX, presenting them as paid agents of the U.S. government attempting to destabilize the revolution, rather than citizens with legitimate demands.
This narrative is common in the Cuban regime to delegitimize the opposition and independent activism, and Castro extended it to other sectors: "All sectors that have certain advancements, they seek projects to recruit mercenaries, for example, with the LGBT activism that we have developed here."
The Convoy Nuestra América, which gathered between 500 and 650 participants under the slogan "Cuba is not alone," delivered over 20 tons of humanitarian aid to the island. President Díaz-Canel presided over an event with the convoy members at the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana and expressed gratitude for the participants covering their own travel expenses.
However, the initiative generated internal criticism. The Cuban artist Ulises Toirac questioned the disconnect between foreign visitors staying in hotels and the reality experienced by the Cuban population.
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