Cuba woke up this Friday with a message from its president, Miguel Diaz-Canelwho, in an unusual televised appearance, has announced the start of talks with the United States Government to seek solutions to the oil blockade. The objective is to “seek a solution to differences through dialogue,” said the president.
The declaration comes at a particularly critical time for the island. The United States has been intensifying pressure on the Cuban Government for months, with a blockade on the supply of Venezuelan oil that is suffocating its already weak economy.
Hence, in recent days, thousands of Cubans have taken to the streets to protest against the energy crisis that has been going on for years and that has now been worsened by fuel shortages and increasingly frequent and prolonged blackouts.
On January 29, after the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump Administration declared a national emergency for Cuba and threatened to impose tariffs on any country that supplied fuel to Havana.
Since then, Washington has been increasing its rhetoric against the island, even now that it is immersed in a costly war in Iran that drags on with no clear end on the horizon.
“PIt may be a friendly takeover. And it wouldn’t matter, because they’re really finished. They are in ruins, as they say. They have no energy, they have no money. “They are in serious humanitarian problems, and we really don’t want to see that,” Trump said just a few days ago.
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