Desperate Castro family offer Trump private ISLAND for ‘super resort’ as president threatens to decapitate Cuba regime
CUBA’S ruling Castro family is offering Donald Trump a private island in a desperate bid to stop the US president decapitating their dying regime, sources say.
The idyllic Cayo Santa María super resort would be renamed “Trump Island” – but only if US sanctions are lifted and plans for a luxury hotel casino project go ahead.
The island government is pitching empty hotels and untapped coastline to investors – including a UAE family business with ambitions to build a Trump-branded resort.
Bizarre AI images show Trump in a flowered shirt, sipping a Mojito beside a skyscraper emblazoned with his name overlooking Santa Maria’s beaches.
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The Trump administration has denied that any direct negotiations with the Castro family are underway over developments on Cayo Santa Maria.
Leonel Leon, a producer for the US-supported Cuban broadcasting service RTV Marti, said the last-ditch bid to get Trump on side with the island only “reveals the regime’s desperation”.
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Washington recently issued a criminal indictment against strongman Raul Castro for ordering the 1996 shooting down of two aircraft of a Miami-based Cuban exile organisation in which four Cuban Americans were killed.
The US Treasury department also slapped sanctions on GAESA, a Panama-registered conglomerate operated by the Castros, which controls Cuba’s economy in partnership with foreign investors.
This has pushed the country – and the Castros – to the brink financially as Trump’s walls rapidly close in.
But US government and Cuban sources say that there have been “backchannels” through which the administration is talking with the Castro – particularly the ex-president’s grandson, Raulito.
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Raulito – nicknamed “The Crab” – is understood to be aggressively pushing for direct negotiations with Trump.
His calls came shortly after Trump dangled a negotiating opportunity as he said: “Cuba has no oil but has nice property and a nice shoreline.”
Raulito has tried bypassing hard-line Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who advocates US military intervention in Cuba – by sending written proposals to Trump by post.
White House officials say the envelopes have been returned unopened.
But a retired US intelligence officer, who has operated in Cuba, believes the Castro regime may have penetrated the US government.
They told The Sun: “They may have reason to believe that deals can be struck with some of Trump’s business cronies.”
He claims major American hotel chains and individual investors are seeking to take advantage of the regime’s weakened state by striking lucrative deals.
Many are interested in picking up Cuban hotels and real estate projects that were abandoned by European and Arab investors after US sanctions kicked in.
Cayo Santa Maria appears to be the leading patch of land up for sale for the ravaged Cubans.
The 16 km strip of white, sandy beach sits off the northern coast and is connected to the mainland by a 48 km causeway.
Known locally as the “White Rose of the King’s Gardens”, the sun-soaked strip is already known as one of Cuba’s most lucrative resort destinations.
But with Trump’s name attached, it could become a global tourism hotspot.
Potential plans for Trump Island remain under wraps for now, with concept documents simply saying it is a “naming option under review”.
Washington already has a strong grip on Cuba – and a Miami-based company has already obtained US government permission to sell oil to energy-starved Cubans.
This has allowed them to jump the US blockade that has been stopping oil shipments from Venezuela, Mexico and Russia.
US Army War College professor and Latin America expert Evan Ellis said there is no private entity in Cuba that can handle the logistics involved.
Could Trump still take over Cuba?
CUBA and America have locked horns for decades with experts believing all the pieces are now in place for the US to step in and stop the Castro regime once and for all.
Since the Communist revolution 67 years ago, Havana and Washington have faced near-Armageddon level tensions – most notably the 1962 Missile Crisis – and remained hostile long after the Cold War ended.
Following years of economic disaster, corruption, and embargoes, the country has been plunged into the most dire situation it has seen in decades.
Ordinary Cubans are bearing the brunt of spiralling living standards – undergoing rationing, national blackouts, gas shortages, paralysed hospitals and bare public transport.
Diseases, particularly mosquito-borne illnesses, have been “wreaking havoc” on the nation, Latin America expert Dr Eduardo Gamarra said.
Political corruption has also dragged living standards for ordinary people to rock bottom.
Reports emerged last year that the military had squirrelled away over £13.5million in a business conglomerate – despite the country’s paralysing economic crisis.
Facing cries for help and pressure to put an end to the Cuban regime, the island is feared to be next on Trump’s hitlist.
The US president said in March he had the right to do “anything I want” with Cuba – claiming he would have the “honour” of seizing the nation.
Cuba’s president Miguel Diaz-Canel responded by vowing to fight off any invasion with an “impregnable resistance” in response.
But Havana is continuing to look likely to submit to Washington – with Dr Gamarra saying the “stars have aligned” for US intervention.
Comparing today’s climate to previous fears of US action, Cuba expert Dr Joseph Gonzalez said: “This is a very different moment.”
In a bid to fend off US action, Cuba officials have been in secretive crunch talks with Washington officials.
This includes the offer of Trump Island.
Carlos Calvo, Cuban army defector and ex-Castro bodyguard, told The Sun: “Any operation on that scale would have to involve the military and could only be negotiated through regime front men.”
The Crab, who speeds around in his luxury 4X4 car through Havana’s rubbish-strewn streets teeming with desperate Cubans queuing for rations, has met with US officials.
He joined discussions with CIA director John Ratcliffe when the spy chief led a delegation to Cuba last month.
Raulito has been actively promoting economic reforms presented before Cuba’s rubber-stamp congress.
He hopes it can set up a new supervisory body to administer “more flexible” rules for foreign investors, such as allowing direct employment of up to 100 workers.
Until now, all wages and salaries are paid through GAESA – which is being heavily impacted by Trump’s sweeping sanctions.
A British businessman involved in Cuba’s energy sector says state security agents infiltrated in his workforce report on any violations of state guidelines.
“Reforms pushed by The Crab will create a mafia of official oligarchs, leaving the regime’s repressive apparatus largely intact as happened in Russia,” Calvo said.
Leon warned that Trump could lose support among Florida’s Cubans if he falls for the “island trap”.
“A contract with Cuba’s ruling group is not a contract with the country but a deal with its jailer,” he said.
Trump has been eyeing up the communist regime in Cuba for months now after the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and charged him with narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges.
He warned Cuba to make a deal earlier in the year and threatened to rip up the regime for good
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Trump warned that even without US intervention, the country is “ready to fall” on its own soon.
But as Trump continues to battle with Iran, his eyes have been briefly taken away from Cuba – paving the way for key negotiations to take place.