'There won't be escalation', says Trump as he calls indictment against Raul Castro 'very big moment'
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "'There won't be escalation', says Trump as he calls indictment against Raul Castro 'very big moment'")
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after stepping off Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on May 20, 2026 Photograph: (AFP)
Donald Trump praised Raul Castro’s indictment while Cuba condemned the charges as a political provocation tied to the 1996 plane shootdown
Donald Trump on Wednesday (May 20) praised the US indictment of former Cuban leader Raul Castro, but said he does not believe further escalation against Cuba is necessary amid growing speculation over Washington’s intentions toward the communist island. "I think it was a very big moment," Trump told reporters when asked about the charges against the 94-year-old Castro. "There won't be escalation. I don't think there needs to be. Look, the place is falling apart. It's a mess, and they sort of lost control."
Trump also indicated that his administration would soon announce the long-standing US embargo on Cuba. “We’ll see. We’ll be announcing it pretty soon,” Trump said when asked how long the embargo would remain in place. The United States has maintained a decades-old economic embargo and oil restrictions on Cuba, measures that have intensified the island’s ongoing economic and energy crisis.
Families of victims react
The indictment stems from the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue. The planes were destroyed near the Cuban coast after being targeted with heat-seeking missiles. Prosecutors allege that Castro, who was serving as Cuba’s defence minister at the time, authorised the attack. Miriam de la Pena, whose son Mario was among the four men killed in the incident, welcomed the charges against Castro. “His age doesn’t matter; he can be brought in on a stretcher,” she told CNN regarding the former Cuban leader. Another relative reportedly added: “That’s what wheelchairs are for.”
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Cuban reaction
Residents in Havana pushed back against the indictment, describing it as a politically motivated move that could worsen tensions during an already fragile period in US-Cuba relations. In areas surrounding Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior and the headquarters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, several residents criticised the US action as a deliberate provocation. The Cuban government also strongly condemned the indictment, calling it a ‘despicable accusation’ against Castro.
“It is a despicable and infamous act of political provocation,” the government said in a statement published online and broadcast on state television. Cuban authorities accused the United States of distorting facts surrounding the 1996 incident involving the downing of the two aircraft. Cuba has long defended the shootdown, arguing that the planes repeatedly violated Cuban airspace despite multiple warnings issued to Washington.
“It is highly cynical that this accusation is made by the same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from the territory of the United States, with the disproportionate use of military force,” the statement read, referring to US operations against alleged drug-trafficking boats. The Cuban government further claimed the indictment was intended to justify “collective punishment” against the Cuban people.
