Rubio Holds Secret Backchannel Talks With Raúl Castro’s Grandson as U.S. Squeezes Cuba

Axios reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding undisclosed talks with Raúl Castro’s grandson and bodyguard, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, as the Trump administration ramps up unprecedented pressure aimed at ending Cuba’s communist regime. Senior officials say these are not formal negotiations but 'discussions about the future,' reflecting a belief that the 94‑year‑old Raúl remains Cuba’s real decision‑maker and that his 41‑year‑old grandson and allied officers in the GAESA military conglomerate represent a younger, business‑minded elite open to a deal with Washington. The backchannel comes as Cuba faces deepening blackouts, medicine and food shortages and collapsing tourism—crises worsened by Trump’s Jan. 3 operation abducting Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, which U.S. officials say killed at least 32 Cuban security personnel and cut a key source of subsidized oil, and by a Jan. 29 threat to sanction Mexico over oil shipments to the island. The article says Rubio and Trump advisers are effectively 'looking for the next Delcy' in Cuba, mirroring contacts they held with Venezuelan insiders before the Maduro grab and signaling that Washington may be prepared to leave some regime figures in place if they help engineer a transition. For U.S. readers, the story reveals that Cuba policy is being driven through clandestine personal channels rather than formal diplomacy, with the administration openly embracing regime change while quietly sounding out heirs within the ruling family about what a post‑Castro order might look like.