The Cuban historian and professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández published a scathing analysis this Friday on the media operation surrounding Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of Raúl Castro known as "the Crab," following the profile published by USA Today on July 6.
According to the analysis by López Hernández in CubaxCuba, this journalistic work is not aimed at Cubans, but rather at shaping the perception of an international audience —especially that of President Donald Trump— regarding the man whom the regime is trying to present as the potential face of a future Cuba.
The author identifies in the USA Today profile a series of assessments that she considers part of a deliberate construction: that Raúl Guillermo "exerts an influence, authority, and political weight that is hard to ignore"; that "he is in a position to negotiate the future of his country"; and that he is "a bridge to the negotiators from the United States." The conclusion of the text, according to López Hernández, aims to persuade readers of something implausible: that the Cangrejo represents not only the hope of the political class he embodies but also of the Cuban people.
USA Today concludes its profile with an image that the dissident describes as propagandistic: "Rodríguez Castro may or may not reach the peak of formal power on the island. But in a sense, he already wields authority. In meetings with high-ranking Cuban officials, everyone yields the floor to him. When he walks down a hallway, those who see him stand up. And when he walks down the street, Cubans stop what they are doing to follow him with their eyes."
López Hernández notes that the profile seems "like a commissioned job" designed to appeal to Trump: Raúl's grandson is not a traditional politician; he enjoys luxury and private parties, and his favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees, the same as the U.S. president's.
To understand why the regime needs to construct this urgent interlocutor, the analyst reviews the state of the Castro succession. Raúl Castro is 95 years old, and his advanced age coincides with the terminal crisis of the model he established. None of the natural candidates from his circle survived or proved viable: his son-in-law Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, president of GAESA, died in July 2022 at the age of 62; commander Ramiro Valdés passed away on June 21, 2026, at the age of 94; and Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, son of Fidel, took his own life in February 2018.
From Raúl's children, Alejandro Castro Espín was involved in negotiations with Obama between 2013 and 2014, which stalled on partial reforms. Mariela Castro is a fierce critic of imperialism and Trump among sectors of the international left, making any shift towards Washington unfeasible. Thus, according to López Hernández, "only Raúl Guillermo remains," who has transitioned from being a mere custodian of his grandfather to supervising classified reports from three ministries, acting as a liaison between GAESA and Raúl Castro, and traveling 23 times to Panama in the past year to seek investment opportunities.
The Cuban ambassador to Uruguay herself, when recently asked about who Raúl Guillermo is, responded with a nervous smile: “a bodyguard of his grandfather.” That answer illustrates, according to the dissident, how recent and rapid the “express construction of the character” has been, initiated only after what happened in Venezuela and Trump’s ultimatum to the Cuban regime.
López Hernández also spares no criticism of the contradictions of Raúl Guillermo himself. In the interview with USA Today, Raúl's grandson stated: "It hurts me so much that people cannot live like I do. My greatest sorrow is that people struggle." However, this same individual declared that he would like Cubans to be able to "buy foie gras in supermarkets," in a country where 89% of the population lived in extreme poverty in 2025 and more than 11,000 protests shook the island that year.
The activist concludes with a warning that goes beyond the individual: "It's not about whether Raúl Castro's grandson is the only one who can represent the interests of the Cuban nation at a negotiating table with the United States; it’s about legitimizing an inexperienced scion of the power structure before Washington, even if he is open to the development of capitalism, above any institution, so that when the 'historical generation' disappears in a short time, the political exclusion system they created remains unchanged."
López Hernández writes from the house arrest he has been under since June 18, 2024, while his trial in Matanzas remains indefinitely suspended.
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