The Cuban government tried to execute a plan to lobby President Donald Trump directly, while making an end-run around Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
"The grandson of Cuban leader Raúl Castro tapped a wealthy Havana entrepreneur to try to personally deliver a letter to the White House last week outside of regular diplomatic channels, said a U.S. official and a former U.S. official," José de Córdoba and Vera Bergengruen reported. "The letter was formatted similarly to a diplomatic note and carried an official Cuban seal," and "proposed economic and investment agreements as well as sanctions relief, and warned that the Cuban regime was preparing for a U.S. incursion, the U.S. official said."
Ultimately, the plan fell apart because the businessman, tourism tycoon Roberto Carlos Chamizo González, was stopped at Miami International Airport by a CBP officer, who seized the letter and sent him back to Havana.
Rubio is famously descended from Cuban dissidents and is one of the most critical members of the Trump administration against the regime, although more recently, he has gone to bat for Trump's failure to fully enforce his threats to blockade Cuba's shipping.
"The letter was an extraordinary attempt to jump-start discussions with the Trump administration by Raúl Rodríguez Castro, 41, the grandson and chief aide of Raúl Castro, as the island struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades," the report continued. "Trump might be more amenable to cutting an economic deal with Cuba while leaving most of the regime in place, as he did in Venezuela, an outcome that would be anathema to many Cuban-Americans, Cuba-focused political analysts say."
"If the negotiations don’t result in regime change, Trump could face resistance from hard-line Cuban-American lawmakers and voters who have enthusiastically backed him," noted the report. However, "Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he refuses to negotiate over Cuba’s political system" as U.S. officials have attempted to navigate talks.