HAVANA – Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Monday that his administration is not in talks with the U.S. government, a day after President Donald Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested that Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
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Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
He added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence."
His statements were reposted by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on X.
On Sunday, Trump wrote that Cuba would no longer live off oil and money from Venezuela, which the U.S. attacked on Jan. 3 in a stunning operation that killed 32 Cuban officers and led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.
Cuba was receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels a day from Venezuela before the U.S. attacked, along with some 5,500 barrels daily from Mexico and roughly 7,500 from Russia, according to Jorge Piñón of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, who tracks the shipments.
Even with oil shipments from Venezuela, widespread blackouts have persisted across Cuba given fuel shortages and a crumbling electric grid. Experts worry a lack of petroleum would only deepen the island's multiple crises.
The situation between the U.S. and Cuba is “very sad and concerning,” said Andy S. Gómez, retired dean of the School of International Studies and senior fellow in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami.
He said he sees Díaz-Canel’s latest comments “as a way to try and buy a little bit of time for the inner circle to decide what steps it’s going to take.”
Gómez said he doesn’t visualize Cuba reaching out to U.S. officials right now.
“They had every opportunity when President (Barack) Obama opened up U.S. diplomatic relations, and yet they didn’t even bring Cuban coffee to the table,” Gómez said. “Of course, these are desperate times for Cuba.”
Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., said he believes Cuba might be willing to negotiate.
“Cuba has been interested in finding ways to ease sanctions,” he said. “It's not that Cuba is uncooperative.”
Galant said topics for discussion could include migration and security, adding that he believes Trump is not in a hurry.
“Trump is hoping to deepen the economic crisis on the island, and there are few costs to Trump to try and wait that out,” he said. “I don’t think it’s likely that there will be any dramatic action in the coming days because there is no rush to come to the table.”
Cuba's president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.