Madrid, Spain.- The United States Government has put in undefined pause the bilateral migratory conversations with Havana, held semi-annual since April 2022.
A state department spokesman declared Martí News: “The Trump administration will no longer interact with the Cuban regime for the mere fact of interacting and dialogue, without end”, without specifying the conditions for its eventual resumption.
Similarly, a senior official informed Strong coffee That the decision responds to the foreign policy of “putting the United States ahead” (“America First”), discarding purely formal commitments. According to US authorities, meetings will be resumed only when Washington considers “necessary to meet with the Cuban government.”
This turn occurs after the complaints of the Cuban Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, who in March complained about the absence of official contacts to treat deportations. Fernández de Cossío assured Reuters that “there has been no request for that nature by the United States government” and that a possible increase in expulsions had not yet been discussed.
Context and background
The migratory negotiations had begun in April 2022 under the presidency of Joe Biden, after being interrupted in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first mandate following the linking of the Cuban regime with the “Havana syndrome.” Since then, both governments celebrated four rounds of dialogue on human trafficking, migratory fraud and drug trafficking.
On January 31, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, reiterated the support of the United States to the Cuban people and their demand for accountability to the regime “for the oppression of their people and the malignant interference in America.” With Trump’s return to power on January 20, 2025, the White House ratified the permanence of Cuba in the List of terrorism sponsorship statesupdated the restricted list of entities linked to the Armed Forces and Intelligence Services, and enabled private demands for confiscated properties.
Congressmen like Carlos Giménez have pressed to even suspend remittances and trips, proposing additional hardening.
The interruption of this semiannual dialogue leaves in suspense the only official negotiation route on deportations and administration of migratory flows, affecting more than 42,000 Cubans with the final order of expulsion and those that Havana refuses to accept them back.
