The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said this Monday that “there are no conversations with the United States Government.” In a long thread on his social networks, he thus responded to Donald Trump, who on Sunday had urged Havana to “As history shows, relations between the United States and Cuba, in order for them to advance, must be based on International Law instead of hostility, threat and economic coercion.”
Díaz-Canel added that the Cuban Government is willing to “maintain a serious and responsible dialogue” with the current US Administration “on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, reciprocal benefit, without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
There are no conversations with the US government, except for technical contacts in the immigration field.
1/6
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB)
Díaz-Canel indicated that for the moment there are only “technical contacts” between Cuba and the United States in the “immigration field” based on bilateral agreements that Havana, the president said, “scrupulously complies with.”
Trump included his call for Cuba to negotiate an agreement with Washington in a message on social networks this Sunday dedicated to the island in which he insisted that Havana was not going to receive “more oil or money” from Venezuela. “I suggest [a Cuba] “Let them reach an agreement before it is too late,” added the Republican, who has been predicting that the Cuban Government will fall soon.
Last Friday, the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, said that Cuba is not going to “sell the country or give in to the threat and blackmail” of the United States after participating in the tribute ceremony in Caracas to those who fell in the US attacks to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, among them
Venezuela has been Cuba’s main energy supplier based on a bilateral agreement, through which Caracas has received professional services from Havana (mainly doctors and teachers, but also security and defense experts) in exchange for crude oil.
The US interceptions of oil tankers sanctioned from the South American country and the announcement by the US president that Washington will threaten to put Havana under maximum tension.
Cuba has been suffering a profound energy crisis since mid-2024 due to the frequent breakdowns of its obsolete power plants and the State’s lack of foreign currency to purchase the fuel necessary for its generation units, which causes power outages of 20 or more hours a day in large areas of its territory.
