Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said his administration is not in talks with the U.S. government, a day after President Donald Trump threatened the island after a U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel made the comments on Monday, posting a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” In the statements, he argued that relations between the U.S. and Cuba must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.
Díaz-Canel also said his government has “always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue” with “various US governments, including the current one,” and that any engagement should rest on sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of international law, mutual benefit, and without interference in internal affairs.
His statements were reposted by Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, on X.
Trump’s comments came Sunday after he wrote that Cuba would no longer “live off oil and money” from Venezuela. The AP report said the U.S. attacked Venezuela on Jan. 3 in an operation that killed 32 Cuban officers and led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.
Before the Venezuela attack, Cuba was receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels a day from Venezuela, 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.
On Monday, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum declined to provide data on current oil shipments to Cuba and did not say whether shipments would increase when Venezuelan supplies end. She insisted that the aid “has been ongoing for a long time; it’s not new,” and said the Mexican fuel supply to Cuba was not a concern because “there is enough oil,” while the AP report said production of state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos is steadily declining.
Sheinbaum also reiterated that Mexico is willing to facilitate dialogue between the U.S. and Cuba if both sides agree.
Even with oil shipments from Venezuela, the AP report said widespread blackouts have persisted across Cuba due to fuel shortages and a deteriorating electric grid. Experts cited in the report worried that a lack of petroleum would deepen Cuba’s multiple crises, which stem from economic paralysis during the COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp increase in U.S. sanctions after the first Trump administration.
The Cuban government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025, the AP report said. It also said tourism revenue reached some $3 billion annually at its peak in the previous decade and that the crisis has triggered a large wave of migration primarily to the United States, where Cubans had immigration privileges as exiles until those privileges were curtailed before Trump closed U.S. borders.
Andy S. Gómez, a retired dean and senior fellow in Cuban studies at the University of Miami, said he sees Díaz-Canel’s latest comments as a way to “buy a little bit of time for the inner circle to decide what steps it’s going to take.” Gómez said he does not visualize Cuba reaching out to U.S. officials right now and said, referring to a period when President Barack Obama opened U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations, “they didn’t even bring Cuban coffee to the table.” He added: “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, saying “Cuba has been interested in finding ways to ease sanctions” and “It’s not that Cuba is uncooperative.” He suggested that topics for discussion could include migration and security, and said he believes Trump is not in a hurry—adding, “Trump is hoping to deepen the economic crisis on the island, and there are few costs to Trump to try and wait that out,” and that he does not think dramatic action is likely because “there is no rush to come to the table.”
Díaz-Canel also stressed on X that there are “no talks with the U.S. government,” except for technical contacts in the area of migration.
As tensions remained elevated, the AP report said life continued for many Cubans while some worried about what could come next. Oreidy Guzmán, 32, said she does not want anything bad to happen to Cubans, but that “the people deserve change.” Meilyn Gómez, 37, said she did not believe the U.S. would invade Cuba and described preparing for any outcome under Trump: “He’ll find entertainment anywhere.” Another resident, Rubén Benítez, said Cubans talk “but to be honest, eleven, eight or nine million will take to the streets to defend what little we have left.”