On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump wrote on his social network that the governments of Washington DC and Havana would talk
The director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, met this Thursday with the Minister of Internal Administration of Cuba, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, in Havana.
The information is being provided by Reuters, which cites the Cuban government. The news of Ratcliffe’s trip to Cuba comes hours after a witness told the same agency that an American government plane was departing from the capital’s airport at that moment.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump wrote on his social network that the governments of Washington DC and Havana would talk.
“No Republican has ever spoken to me about Cuba, that it is a failed country and that it only goes in one direction: downward! Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!! In the meantime, I’m going to China!”, wrote the American leader.
However, this Thursday, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said on X that lifting the blockade by the US would be a “simpler” way to help the country.
“It would be possible to mitigate the damage more simply and quickly by lifting or easing the blockade, since it is public knowledge that the humanitarian situation [da ilha] is calculated and coldly provoked” by Washington, said Miguel Díaz-Canel on the social network X.
Our country’s experience in receiving international aid, including from the United States, is extensive and constructive. Any donor can attest to that reality.
If the US government is truly willing to provide aid in the amounts it announces and in full…
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB)
Díaz-Canel’s statement came a day after the State Department said it had offered $100 million in humanitarian aid to the island.
“As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated, the United States has also made numerous private proposals to the Cuban regime to provide generous aid to the Cuban people, including support for the provision of free, high-speed satellite internet and $100 million in direct humanitarian aid,”
“Today, the State Department publicly reaffirms the United States’ generous offer to provide an additional $100 million in direct humanitarian aid. (…) It is up to the Cuban regime to decide whether to accept our offer of aid or refuse vital assistance and, ultimately, to answer to the Cuban people for having prevented the provision of this essential assistance,” the note concludes.
Cuba has been under an energy blockade since the end of January imposed by the USA and Donald Trump, who wants to overthrow the local communist regime. The island’s inhabitants struggle with prolonged electricity cuts, sometimes lasting 22 hours a day, as well as a lack of fuel.
