Cuba confirms negotiations with US as country faces effects of oil blockade

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Malu Cursino

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Díaz-Canel said Cuba’s electricity grid was increasingly “unstable”.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said that his government is in talks with the Trump administration to find solutions to the two countries’ differences, as the Caribbean country continues to face the effects of a US oil blockade.

Díaz-Canel said no fuel had entered Cuba in three months.

Talks between the two nations were in their initial stages, said Díaz-Canel, who is leading the Cuban side of negotiations, in a national broadcast on Friday.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Cuba was in “deep trouble” as he threatened a “friendly takeover”.

Cuba is experiencing several blackouts as the island struggles with fuel shortages, which have been made worse by pressure from the US.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has made clear his desire to change Cuba’s leadership. He has also threatened tariffs on goods imported into the US from any country that gives Cuba oil.

The White House told the BBC on Friday that: “As the president stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal, which he believes ‘would be very easily made’”.

Havana relies heavily on imported fuel for its electricity and the US has seized a number of oil shipments bound for Cuba.

Venezuela was believed to have sent around 35,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba, providing about half the island’s oil needs. But Washington’s Venezuela raid - and capture of President Nicolás Maduro - in early January has disrupted the arrangement.

In his national broadcast, Díaz-Canel said that not having fuel enter Cuba for the past three months has led to the gradual decline of diesel and fuel oil reserves. Given this, the country’s electrical grid has become increasingly “unstable”, he said.

To mitigate the impact Cuba had increased production of domestic crude and gas, as well as solar generation.

Watch: What’s at the heart of Cuba and Venezuela’s relationship?

The US and Cuba have had strained relations since communist leader Fidel Castro overthrew a US-backed government in 1959. US sanctions and trade embargoes on Cuba have been in place since the early 1960s.

The island nation is just 90 miles (145 km) south of Florida. Given the proximity, many Cubans who do not identify with Havana’s politics emigrate to the US, which is one of the reasons why Miami has such a large Cuban-American demographic.

Regarding the current talks, Trump has said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, is involved.

Speaking in February, Rubio said Cuba needed to change.

“It needs to change dramatically because it is the only chance that it has to improve the quality of life for its people,” he told reporters on 25 February.

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In 2024, Cuban-Americans in Miami held protests in support of political prisoners held in Cuban jails, while campaigning for Donald Trump’s return to the White House

Additionally, Cuba will release 51 prisoners in the coming days as a demonstration of “goodwill” following talks with the Vatican, Havana’s government said.

It comes weeks after Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met Pope Leo in the Vatican.

Cuba did not specify whether those to be freed included political prisoners, but it said they had all “served a significant portion of their sentences and have maintained good conduct while in prison”.

Detailing the forthcoming release, Cuba’s foreign ministry said that since 2010 Havana has pardoned 9,905 prisoners.

Over the last three years, the ministry added, another 10,000 people who had been imprisoned were released “through various other forms of relief”. The government said the decision was “sovereign” and in line with the upcoming Holy Week in the Christian calendar.

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