In what was seen as a last-ditch effort to save his hobbled government, President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba announced on Friday that his government had been holding talks with the Trump administration while managing an increasingly severe lack of fuel.
Cuba’s government is facing an existential crisis as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on the 67-year-old Communist state, maintaining what amounts to an oil blockade. Fuel is rapidly running out, plunging Cuba into prolonged periods of darkness.
The Cuban government has been in dire straits since the United States attacked Venezuela in January, arrested its president, took control of its state oil industry and blocked fuel shipments to Cuba. Venezuela had been Cuba’s top supplier of oil.
President Trump threatened to impose severe tariffs on any country that provided Cuba with oil. The Cuban government was forced to curtail public transportation, elective surgeries and other services that depended on diesel fuel.
With Cuba dependent on foreign oil for 60 percent of its fuel supply, experts have estimated that it would run out of fuel this month. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that the Cuban government would collapse on its own.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump suggested that a Cuba deal was imminent. “As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Mr. Trump said. “Cuba’s at the end of the line,” he added. “They have no money. They have no oil.”
Mr. Díaz-Canel, in a 90-minute news conference broadcast on state media, said the talks were aimed at finding solutions to Cuba’s differences with the United States. He said the discussions were based on “respect for the political systems of both countries, sovereignty and our government’s self-determination,” suggesting that, from his point of view, political changes in Cuba were not on the table.
Cuba’s government announced on Thursday that it would soon release 51 prisoners, in what appeared to be an effort to appease the Trump administration.