In 1960, Cuba took back its docks, sugar mills, and power plants from American owners. This May, Washington moved to reclaim them: it indicted Raul Castro over the 1996 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue planes, sailed an aircraft carrier into the Caribbean, and won Supreme Court backing for claims over confiscated property.
These moves are not improvised. They rest on the long-standing US embargo and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which allows US nationals to sue any company using property confiscated by Cuba. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission has held 5,913 certified claims worth $1.9 billion in principal and some $9 billion with interest since the 1960s.
On January 3, 2026, US forces seized Venezuela's president in a predawn raid on Caracas and killed 32 Cuban officers, cutting off Venezuelan oil to Cuba. By May, parts of Havana were dark for up to 20 hours a day. Trump says Cuba is next for US-imposed regime change, once Iran is settled.
"We are dying alive," a Cuban television director said. The blockade is unevenly borne: families without Miami remittances suffer most. Demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espineira calls for international humanitarian intervention, but Washington refuses relief without coercion.
On May 20, the Justice Department indicted 94-year-old Raul Castro for the 1996 incident. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Castro would come willingly or by other means — the template used for Maduro in Venezuela.
The day after, the Supreme Court ruled in Havana Docks Corp v Royal Caribbean Cruises that cruise lines using Havana's port trafficked in confiscated property. Justice Sotomayor warned this could license unlimited recovery from unlimited people.
The property claims are racially structured: owners in 1959 were white US corporations and the Creole elite. Black Cubans, whose labor built the docks and mills, hold no certified claims.
The USS Nimitz strike group entered the Caribbean after the ruling. Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel warns of a bloodbath. Cuba does not intend to be taken quietly.
Source: www.aljazeera.com