Daniel Trotta
HAVANA, March 20 (Reuters) – Cuba on Friday rejected any suggestion that its political system or presidency would require negotiations with the United States, following reports that Washington was seeking to oust Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
“I can unequivocally confirm… that Cuba’s political system is non-negotiable and, of course, the position of the president and of any official in Cuba should not be negotiated with the United States,” Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cosio told a news conference.
Cuba said a week ago that it was in talks with the U.S. government as an oil blockade imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump plunges the communist-ruled country further into economic crisis and as Trump said he could do “whatever I want” to its sovereign neighbor.
Speaking later to a group of foreign activists offering humanitarian aid to Cuba, Díaz-Canel said Cuba was preparing for possible U.S. “aggression.”
“We don’t just cross our arms. First of all, we recognize the possibility of aggression against Cuba,” said Diaz-Canel, who has sounded more defiant recently.
“Any external aggressor will face impenetrable resistance,” he said on social media on Tuesday.
USA Today cited two sources with knowledge of the Trump administration’s plans as saying that Trump was preparing an economic deal with Cuba that would ease trade restrictions but include an “exit ramp” for Díaz-Canel.
The New York Times later cited four people familiar with the matter as saying the Trump administration was seeking to oust Díaz-Canel, who has two years left in his term as president and only five years left in the Communist leader’s term.
Both reports said the U.S. proposal would not affect the families of former presidents Fidel and Raul Castro. Fidel Castro died in 2016, but 94-year-old Raul Castro remains extremely influential eight years after handing over the presidency to 65-year-old Díaz-Canel.
Such an agreement would be similar to what happened in Venezuela, where the United States deposed President Nicolás Maduro on January 3. The United States did not try to establish an opposition government, but instead worked with acting president Delcy Rodriguez. Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, came to power after US forces took Maduro away in an early morning raid.
extensive authority
Power in Cuba is widely distributed among senior Communist Party leaders, other government officials, and the armed forces, unlike the concentration of power that characterized Castro from the beginning of the 1959 revolution to the beginning of Díaz-Canel’s term in 2018.
DeCosio, the head of the Foreign Ministry office responsible for U.S. relations, declined to provide further details of the bilateral discussions or answer questions about when and where they took place.
But he did say there were many topics of mutual interest, including trade between the two countries disrupted by the sweeping U.S. economic blockade against Cuba.
He also mentioned the financial compensation that countries have long sought. Cuba has filed claims against the United States for losses caused by the embargo, while Americans whose property was nationalized in Cuba after the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power have filed 5,913 claims.
“These are very complex issues that can be discussed but require dialogue,” DeCosio said. “They need to sit down and be a legal thing.”
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Havana; Editing by Alistair Bell and Rosalba O’Brien)
