Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said his government is willing to engage with the Trump administration as the Communist island braces for severe fuel shortages after the U.S. threatened to impose trade sanctions to countries shipping oil to the Communist island.
Díaz-Canel said at a hastily convened news conference on Thursday that any dialogue should come without prior conditions, and as equals, respecting Cuba’s sovereignty.
“To surrender isn’t an option for Cuba,” he said, framed by an image of the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
His rare press conference, which lasted two hours, comes days after the U.S. identified the Cuban government as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” due to its alliance with Russia, China, and Iran. Since last month’s raid in Venezuela to capture strongman Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has moved to choke off Cuba’s fuel lifeline.
Díaz-Canel said Cuba was no danger to the U.S., which he called the biggest threat to the world’s security.
“We aren’t in a state of war,” he said. “But we are preparing ourselves in case we have to move to a state of war.”
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has also been searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out the Communist regime by the end of the year, according to people familiar with the plans. Trump has said his administration is “talking to Cuba,” although U.S. officials haven’t disclosed any details.
“It doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis,” Trump said earlier this week. “I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal.”
Cuba has been going through its worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, primarily because of decades of economic mismanagement, made worse by the Covid epidemic, which decimated its tourism industry. U.S. sanctions have also taken a toll. The Caribbean island has long been dependent on supplies of Venezuelan oil, which ceased last month after Maduro’s capture.
Cubans are now facing increasingly severe blackouts, and the situation is expected to deteriorate in coming weeks as fuel reserves run out under sustained U.S. pressure. Basic goods, food and medicines are hard to find. Unable to afford insecticide, Cuba has been plagued by mosquito-born diseases, overwhelming medical facilities.
In Washington, lawmakers and prominent Trump allies who have long pressed for the U.S. to topple the government are now seeking to seize the opportunity to squeeze it further.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R., Fla.) on Thursday sent letters to major U.S. airline executives calling on them to immediately end all commercial flights to the island. “Commercial flights provide the Cuban dictatorship with hard currency that directly benefits the regime,” he wrote in the letter, arguing this goes against U.S. national security interests.
Cuba’s government has accused the Trump administration of “blackmail and coercion.”
Díaz-Canel said on Thursday that Cuba was working to increase oil output and fuel storage capacity. The island produces 40,000 barrels per day of low-quality crude, which is mostly used to power obsolete electricty plants that often fail because of shoddy maintenance.
Oil experts say Cuba could run out of oil in a matter of weeks, bringing the island’s economy to a stop, from public transport to hospitals, schools and factories.
“Tough times are coming,” said Díaz-Canel. “We will overcome this together with creative resistance.”
Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com