After months of threats from Donald Trump, Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has said his government is prepared to enter discussions with the United States, provided they take place “without pressure”.
Speaking on Thursday while standing before a life-sized photograph of Fidel Castro holding a rifle during the 1959 revolution, the 65-year-old leader said Cuba had been subjected to an “intense media campaign of slander, hatred and psychological warfare”.
Despite this, Díaz-Canel said the government remained open to talks. He stressed that the country was “willing to engage in dialogue with the United States, a dialogue on any topic, but without pressure or preconditions”.
The address was broadcast across television, radio, and YouTube. It came as Cuba faces escalating threats of regime change from US officials, particularly following the 3 January US military capture of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president and a long-standing ally of Havana.
On Sunday, Trump indicated that discussions might already be taking place, telling reportings: “Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. So we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.
“I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba.”
Last month, Trump signed an executive order threatening additional tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba. He later claimed that Mexico had agreed to stop oil shipments at his request, a statement that Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has denied.
On Thursday, it is reported that an oil tanker previously used to transport Venezuelan fuel to Cuba had completed loading a 150,000-barrel shipment of gasoline, potentially signalling that Venezuela may be preparing to resume fuel deliveries to the island.
Miguel Díaz-Canel
But Cuban authorities are also bracing the public for further hardship. The country is already grappling with a severe economic downturn that has driven some people to beg on the streets or search rubbish bins for food.
Hyperinflation in recent years has sharply reduced the value of state wages and pensions. Power outages remained widespread on Thursday, with reports indicating that the entire eastern region of the island had lost electricity.
Díaz-Canel said he had received messages from the leaders of China and Russia, as well as others around the world. “They expressed their support, commitment and determination to continue collaboration and cooperation with Cuba and Venezuela,” he said.
However, a businessman based in Havana who has worked with the Cuban government for more than 25 years suggested the situation was increasingly desperate. “They are out of options. There are strong rumours of talks already under way in Mexico,” he said.
In his speech, Díaz-Canel warned of the mounting pressure facing the country, saying: “The energy persecution, the financial persecution, the intensification of the blockade with these coercive measures is such that we know we have to do a very strong, very creative, very intelligent job to overcome all these obstacles.
”We are going to take measures that, while not permanent, will require effort.”
In interviews conducted ahead of the address, other senior officials made clear how difficult the road ahead would be.
“It’s not easy,” deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told the news agency Efe. “It’s difficult for the government and very difficult for the population as a whole.”
