Cuban president confirms talks with Trump officials amid US blockade

Source: The Guardian

Cuban officials have held talks with the US government to seek solutions to the blockade imposed on the Caribbean nation, Miguel Díaz-Canel has said in a video broadcast on national television.

“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel, the Cuban president, said in the video, which aired on Friday, shortly before he was scheduled to address Cuban media in a rare appearance that comes amid a severe economic crisis and as the Communist government has come under increasing pressure from Donald Trump.

Díaz-Canel said that the Cuban negotiators had participated “on the basis of equality and respect for the political systems of both states, and for the sovereignty and self-determination” of the Cuban government.

Díaz-Canel said no petroleum shipments have arrived on the island in the past three months, which he blamed on a US energy blockade.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/13/cuba-us-talks-miguel-diaz-canel-trump