Fidel Castro's Grandson Criticizes Cuban Government

In another video, he pretends to reject a call from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio while mocking piles of trash, blackouts, and other signs of decay on the island. Almost always wearing dark sunglasses and holding a bottle of Cristal beer, Castro told CNN that his famous surname does not protect him from the island's problems. His grandfather, Fidel, led the 1959 revolution that turned the 10 million-inhabitant island into a communist bastion just 90 miles from the coast of Florida. However, online commentators question if anyone else could do what he does. Fidel Castro's grandson, known for his love of beer and his role as an influencer, launched harsh criticism against the Cuban regime: the island's communist leader “is not doing a good job” and most people want a different system of government. In an interview with CNN in Havana released on Monday, Sandro Castro said that President Miguel Díaz-Canel “a long time ago should have done many, many things that have not been done well and today they are harming us in our lives.” He also stated that “many people want capitalism with sovereignty in Cuba.” Who is Sandro Castro, Fidel Castro's grandson and influencer? In a country where government criticism is often punished, the young Castro has gained followers by posting parodies and satirical videos on Instagram, where he has 158,000 followers, and on other social media platforms. In one of his videos, he takes a Donald Trump impersonator who wants to “buy” the island on a motorcycle ride. “If any other Cuban on the island ‘did this video, what would happen to them?’,” one person wrote in response to his Instagram post. U.S. Pressure on Cuba The government in Havana attributes many of its problems to the U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign, including a de facto blockade that has prevented fuel from arriving on the island for over three months. On Tuesday, that siege was temporarily eased when a Russian tanker carrying about 730,000 barrels of crude oil arrived at the port of Matanzas. The decision to allow the shipment does not represent a change in policy, according to the White House. The United States reserves the right to seize or allow the passage of future tankers on a case-by-case basis, the Trump press secretary said on Monday, as the administration applies economic pressure in an attempt to force changes in the one-party state. But for one of Cuba's top government officials, the fact that the tanker's arrival was international news is a sign of Washington's cruelty. It is “a sign of the brutal siege that Cubans live with heroism and stoicism,” Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio said on Tuesday in a post on X. It is “a sample of the criminal relentlessness of imperialism against a nation that refuses to be dominated.”