Trump Administration Engaged In “Serious” Negotiations With Cuba, Officials Confirm

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed his government is holding discussions with the Trump administration.

“These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations,” Díaz-Canel said in a prerecorded statement, according to The Guardian.

The talks are the latest sign that Cuban officials are open to signing a deal with the United States.

Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel confirmed Friday that Cuban officials recently held conversations with the U.S. government. https://t.co/nTNBf47Gjk

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 13, 2026

More from The Guardian:

Those differences are stark and well known: Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state and son of Cuban immigrants, has made it clear he wants regime change in Havana, while Donald Trump this week repeated his calls for a “friendly takeover” – before then telling reporters: “It may not be a friendly takeover.”

After the US military’s successful abduction of Venezuelan president and Cuba ally Nicolás Maduro in January, Trump signed an executive order effectively placing the Caribbean island under an oil blockade. Díaz-Canel confirmed on Friday that no fuel has entered for three months.

In his remarks to the Communist party leaders, and subsequently to handpicked reporters, Díaz-Canel was careful not to offer much more information, beyond efforts to increase domestic oil production and keep the electricity grid operating in some form.

Recently, large numbers of people have been banging pans on the streets at night to signal their frustration, and a group of students at Havana University staged a sit-in on the university steps.

“Whenever we have been in tense situations in relations with the United States, efforts have been made to find channels for dialogue,” Díaz-Canel told the reporters. “I believe the most recent example were the talks with President Obama.”

Trump said last week that Cuba is “at the end of the line.”

“They have no money. They have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time,” he added.

WATCH: President Trump Says Cuba Is In Its Last Moments Of Life, Will Topple Very Soon!

USA TODAY shared further:

Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview that Havana was engaged in “serious” and “sensitive” negotiations with the U.S. government. She declined to say how far along the talks may be while stressing the Cuban government has been a reliable partner.

“The dialogue with the U.S. is a process,” Lianys Torres Rivera, the Cuban government’s chief representative in Washington, said on March 13.

USA TODAY previously reported that the Trump administration is preparing an economic deal with Cuba that could be announced soon, though the details of the prospective deal and exact timing are not known.

Díaz-Canel was handpicked by Cuba’s former leader Raúl Castro − the brother of Fidel Castro, who led the 1959 revolution that toppled the Cuban government − as his successor.

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