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Former Cuban President Raúl Castro was indicted Wednesday in connection with the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft that killed four people — reviving scrutiny of former President Barack Obama’s highly publicized 2016 trip to Havana.
“President Obama’s approach to Cuba was not merely a policy mistake. It was a diplomatic disaster — naive at best, incompetent at worst, and deeply disrespectful to the dissidents, political prisoners and victims who suffered under the Castro regime,” former Miami mayor Francis Suarez, who is Cuban-American, told Fox News Digital.
“Obama treated normalization as enlightened diplomacy. It handed legitimacy to a brutal dictatorship while asking little in return,” said the Fox News contributor. “The administration reopened relations, relaxed restrictions and gave Havana a public-relations victory, yet the Cuban people remained trapped under the same repressive system and the United States gained no meaningful security concessions.”
The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed a superseding indictment charging Castro and five co-defendants over the deaths of four U.S. nationals aboard two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group. Cuban-American critics said the charges underscore longstanding objections to Obama’s normalization push, which they argue gave legitimacy to the Castro regime.
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Obama went to Cuba with his family in 2016 for bilateral talks on human rights and economic discussions. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Obama traveled to Cuba in 2016 as part of his administration’s push to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations after decades of hostility, arguing that engagement on diplomacy, the economy and human rights would be more effective than isolation. The visit also included Obama and Castro attending a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in Havana.
“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas,” Obama said from Havana that year. “I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.”
Photos of Obama and Castro embracing during the 2016 Havana trip quickly resurfaced online after the indictment, going viral across social media and triggering a wave of criticism from users who blasted the optics of the former president’s relationship with the communist leader.
“While Raoul was harboring American terrorists like Joanne Chesimard and Guillermo Morales. Disgusting,” wrote Fox News contributor Paul Mauro on X.
“Barack Obama in his element with communists and criminals,” wrote General Mike Flynn on X.
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Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz reposted a photo with a cringe emoji.
Castro, 94, is the younger brother of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Raul Castro served as Cuba’s president from 2008 to 2018.
Suarez said that Obama’s Cuba policies were not just a human rights failure but a national security failure not understanding the serious threat the regime posed.
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Photos of Obama and Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana resurface after the DOJ unsealed the Castro indictment. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“It did nothing to curtail Cuba’s role as a base for America’s enemies. It did nothing to confront the island’s use as an intelligence and spy platform so close to our shores. It did nothing to reduce the regime’s support for terrorism. It did nothing to confront Cuba’s narco-state behavior or its destabilizing influence throughout the hemisphere,” said Suarez.
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President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro stand together during Obama’s visit to Cuba. (Getty Images)
Obama’s trip came two decades after the 1996 incident, which became a major flashpoint in U.S.-Cuba relations, as the Trump administration adopted a more public and hardline approach toward Cuba.
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“Raúl Castro and five co-defendants participated in a conspiracy that ended with Cuban military aircraft firing missiles at those planes and killing four Americans,” said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday during the indictment announcement. “Nations and their leaders cannot be permitted to target Americans. Kill them, and not face accountability.”
Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro attend a parade in Havana, Cuba, on Dec. 2, 1996. (Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photography/Getty Images)
Following the indictment, Trump said Cuba is “very important.”
“A lot of people have suffered very big, very, very at levels that few people would understand. And I think the Cuban population of Miami, and certainly beyond Miami,” said Trump. “People that came there that were decimated, whose families were ruined, appreciate what the Attorney General just did today, and he’s just doing it now. He’s just watching it. We have Cuba on our mind. Very important.”
Suarez said that for Cuban Americans, Obama cozying up with Castro was disrespectful.
“It is about families torn apart, property confiscated, voices silenced, dissidents beaten, prisoners of conscience abandoned and generations forced to live under fear. To treat the Castro government as a normal partner without first honoring those victims was not diplomacy,” he said.
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Trump has previously joked the U.S. would be “taking over” Cuba “almost immediately.”
“Cuba’s got problems. We’ll finish one first. I like to finish a job,” he added this month.
Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office and the White House for additional comment on the renewed criticisms of the trip.
