Cuba dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel will participate for the first time in the BRICS leaders summit, at the invitation of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Cuba will participate as a partner country. The invitation was made despite the $ 1.2 billion debt with Brazil pending negotiation.
After resuming ties with Brasilia from Lula’s inauguration in 2023, Cuba recognized the size of debt to the country, but indicated no means of paying it today, which led to an impasse.
Until February, the debt of Cuba (sum of compensation for financing banks -such as BNDES -delays and interest on default) reached $ 742 million and there were another $ 459 million to win, making about $ 1.2 billion ($ 6.4 billion).
Continues after advertising
Like Venezuela, the Lula government wanted to establish a negotiating table to calculate the size of the debt, probe proposals and payment counterputs, and study the creation or resumption of credit/financing lines to export goods and services with Cuba.
For members of Itamaraty alongside conversations, although they agreed on the amounts due and indicating the willingness to pay, the Cubans said that “clearly they have no condition to pay” the debt.
The Cuban default is a stone in the Brazilian shoe, as the resumption of financing lines to Brazilian exports to the island, an exit to streamline the local economy, depends that Cuba pay existing debts.
Continues after advertising
The Brazilian and Cuban governments try to fit schedules for Lula and Díaz-Canel to talk to the BRICS meeting. The bilateral has not yet been confirmed.
Cuba goes through a number of economic and structural problems, such as blackouts and food crisis, and now faces an even larger siege of the US. President Donald Trump has instructed major members of his government to review policy to increase tourism restrictions to the island and prevent financial transactions.
Contrary to what happened with the negotiation between Brazil and Venezuela, which was even paralyzed by political indisposition, the discussion of the debt with the Government of Cuba completed the phase of conciliation of values last year. However, the next stage of discussion has not yet begun.
Continues after advertising
Cuba and Venezuela stopped paying Brazil from 2018, according to BNDES, the main operator of the export lines of engineering goods and services, operated by contractors that would be caught in Operation Lava Jato. The most iconic work in Cuba was Mariel’s port.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the negotiations began in person in Brasilia, in February 2004. Cuba sent members of the Central Bank, the National Bank, the Ministry of Foreign Trade and foreign investment and the embassy in Brasilia.
Along the Brazilian side, the Ministry of Finance (Secretariat of International Affairs, National Treasury Secretariat and Attorney General of the National Treasury), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, BNDES and the Brazilian Agency Management of Guarantees and Guarantees (ABGF).
Continues after advertising
The Meeting of Accounts, coordinated by the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank of Cuba, was made after exchanging electronic messages, virtual meetings and a mission to Havana in September 2024, and only “residual differences” remained.
Despite the consolidation, there has not yet been the beginning of any negotiation around the resolution of delays and values to be overcome and already due.
Unlike high -level lula -lula relationship cooling continues with close ties in Havana. He met a few times with Díaz-Canel in bilateral, and visited the communist island in 2023.
Continues after advertising
Last year, the country gained Brazil’s support to achieve BRICS partner status.
Despite being honored with an invitation to go to the Brazil-Caribe summit on June 13, Díaz-Canel missed and sent Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa for domestic agenda overload.
