Trump Says No Escalation With Cuba After US Indicts Raúl Castro

U.S. President Donald Trump said on May 20 that the United States will not escalate actions against Cuba, in comments following the U.S. Department of Justice’s unsealing of murder charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro.

“There won’t be escalation. I don’t think there needs to be,” Trump told reporters. “Look, the place is falling apart. It’s a mess. They’ve sort of lost control. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”

Hours earlier, the Department of Justice unsealed the indictment, charging 94-year-old Castro with the 1996 murder of four humanitarian aid workers, three of whom were Americans and the other a lawful U.S. resident. Castro was charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, two counts of destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder.

A Miami grand jury also indicted five others—Cuban military pilots Lorenzo Alberto Perez‑Perez, Emilio José Palacio Blanco, José Fidel Gual Barzaga, Raul Simanca Cardenas, and Luis Raul Gonzalez‑Pardo Rodriguez—on the same charges.

Trump said that Cubans support the arrest of Castro, who is the brother of dictator Fidel Castro.

“The Cuban population of Miami, and certainly beyond Miami, people that came there that were decimated, whose families were ruined, appreciate what the attorney general just did today,” he said. “This was a big, I think it was a very big moment for people that, not only Cuban Americans, but people that came from Cuba, that want to go back to Cuba, people that want to see their family in Cuba.”

Trump added that the Cuban people have been looking forward to recent developments.

“They’ve been looking for this moment for 65 years, so we’ll see what happens, but we’re going to, in the meantime, we’re going to have to help them out,” the president said. “They have no, no way of living. They have no food, they have no electricity, they have no energy at all. But they do have great people, a lot of great people.”

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Quiñones detailed the indictment at a news conference in Miami, home to many Cuban exiles.

In 1996, Castro, then Cuba’s defense minister, ordered Cuban jet fighters to destroy two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue civilian planes with the four victims who were searching for Cuban refugees at sea, the indictment alleges.

“The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens,” Blanche said.

Quiñones said: “For 30 years, the families of these men have waited. The Miami community has waited. Our country has waited.”

The indictment also alleges that Cuba’s intelligence agency tasked a network of spies in Florida with informing on Brothers to the Rescue.

In 2006, audio emerged of Castro allegedly describing to Cuban reporters how he had ordered the shootdown of the planes.

“Four humanitarians were on a noble mission to help those fleeing oppression,” FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia said at the Miami presser.

The May 20 indictment is the sharpest legal blow yet in a sweeping Trump administration effort to dismantle the Cuban regime through prosecution, isolation, and economic pressure.

Within hours of his January 2025 inauguration, Trump revoked President Joe Biden’s last-minute decision to remove Cuba from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list—a designation Biden had lifted as part of a deal in which Cuba agreed to free more than 500 political prisoners.

In early 2026, Trump floated the idea of a “friendly takeover” of the island, and his administration expanded sanctions and military pressure throughout the year.