Due to Donald Trump’s threats, Cuba says it is “willing to have a dialogue” with the United States but “without pressure”

“Cuba is willing to have a dialogue with the United States, to have a dialogue on any of the issues that we want to debate or discuss,” but “without pressure” or “preconditioning”, Díaz-Canel said in an appearance on radio and television.

This dialogue will have to take place from “a position of equals, in a position of respect for our sovereignty, our independence, our self-determination” and without “interference in our internal affairs,” he added.

Since the January 3 attack in Venezuela, with which President Nicolás Maduro, Cuba’s main ally, was deposed and took control of the Venezuelan oil sector, Donald Trump has multiplied his threats against the island.

In addition to cutting off the supply of Venezuelan oil and money from Caracas to the island, Trump signed a decree on Thursday that contemplates the imposition of tariffs on those countries that sell crude oil to Havana, under the argument that The island poses an “exceptional threat” to his country.

On Monday, the Republican magnate assured that Mexico, which has supplied oil to Cuba since 2023, would stop doing so.

Díaz-Canel highlighted that the measures announced by the “imperial government”, that aims to suffocate the island’s economy, have led the country to “face an acute fuel shortage.”

Trump has also urged Havana to “reach an agreement” or face unspecified consequences, and insists that he has initiated talks with senior authorities on the island and that he estimates they would culminate in an agreement.

“There is no dialogue specifically at this time, but there has been an exchange of messages,” Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told AFP on Monday.

Díaz-Canel confirmed this Thursday that the island has not received fuel from abroad since last December due to US pressures

“It is condemnable that a power (…) assumes such an aggressive and criminal policy” towards a small country, Díaz-Canel said in an unusual televised intervention before the country’s official media and some selected foreigners.

The president assured that The oil blockade is going to have serious consequences in the countryfor which a series of emergency measures are being implemented that will “demand efforts”; “It is completely suffocating us,” he added.

“If we don’t resist, what are we going to do? Are we going to surrender?”Díaz-Canel asked himself.

He highlighted that the US “energy blockade” will “affect food transportation, food production, public transportation, the operation of hospitals, institutions of all kinds, schools, the production of the economy, tourism,…”.