The White House insisted this Thursday that the US and Cuba are in negotiations, an assertion that the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel continues to deny, and urged Havana to make “prudent” statements.
“As I have already reiterated, President Trump always has a willingness to bet on diplomacy, and I think that is something that is in fact taking place with the Cuban Government,” explained White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt at a press conference today, when asked about the most recent statements by the island’s Executive.
“I think that, given that the Cuban Government is on its last legs and that the country is about to collapse, they should be cautious in their statements addressed to the US president,” the spokesperson added.
Leavitt thus responded to recent statements by Díaz-Canel himself, who denied that there are formal negotiations underway with the US, although he said that Cuba is willing to dialogue, but “without coercion” and under conditions of respect and equality.
That message was in turn in response to the statements of the US president himself, Donald Trump, who assured that he was already “talking” with representatives of the Caribbean nation.
Since the capture and deposition of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, executed by the US in early January, the interim Government of Caracas, under the supervision of Washington, has stopped sending oil to the island, which has deepened the serious economic situation facing Cuba.
Trump himself, who has assured several times that the Díaz-Canel Government is on the verge of collapse, signed an executive order last week to sanction all countries that send crude oil to Cuba.
