Cuban president says no talks with US amid Trump’s escalating threats

Diaz-Canel rejects Trump’s threats, emphasising Cuba’s independency and committedness to defending its sovereignty.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that determination are nary existent talks betwixt Havana and the United States, arsenic US President Donald Trump ratchets up threats against Cuba pursuing his onslaught connected Venezuela.

Diaz-Canel stated successful a societal media station connected Monday that regular coordination connected migration continues betwixt Cuba and the US, but that nary larger talks are presently taking place.

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“We person ever been consenting to support superior and liable dialog with the assorted US administrations, including the existent one, connected the ground of sovereign equality, communal respect and the principles of planetary law,” Diaz-Canel said.

He added that relations betwixt the US and Cuba should beryllium based connected planetary instrumentality alternatively than “hostility, threats, and economical coercion”.

Trump has said that the US could ramp up unit connected Cuba aft the US abduction of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro successful a January 3 onslaught that killed astatine slightest 100 people, including 32 members of the Cuban information forces successful the state for information cooperation.

The US president stated connected Sunday that Venezuelan lipid supplies to Cuba would beryllium chopped disconnected and that the authorities successful Havana should “make a deal” with the US earlier it’s “too late”. Trump besides told reporters that the US was “talking to Cuba” without offering further details.

Diaz-Canel responded to Trump’s comments connected Sunday by saying that Cuba was a “free, independent, and sovereign” state and would support itself “to the past driblet of blood”.

Venezuelan lipid was an important economical lifeline to Cuba, isolated and nether dense US sanctions, providing 35,000 barrels of lipid per time earlier the US attack, according to estimates from Jorge Pinon of the Energy Institute astatine the University of Texas astatine Austin.

Pinon, who tracks the shipments, besides estimates that Mexico supplies Cuba with astir 5,500 barrels of lipid per day, portion Russia supplies 7,500.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has antecedently said that the US onslaught connected Venezuela has accrued the comparative value of Mexican lipid to Cuba, but that Mexico has not accrued lipid income to Havana.

Sheinbaum, who has responded to caller threats from Trump of imaginable subject strikes against transgression groups connected Mexican ungraded with a steadfast insistence connected the country’s sovereignty, said that she spoke with Trump connected Monday to sermon practice connected issues specified arsenic commerce, security, and cause trafficking.

“We had a precise bully speech with US President Donald Trump,” Sheinbaum said successful a societal media post, adding that the talks included a treatment of information “with respect to our sovereignties”.

“Collaboration and practice wrong a model of communal respect ever output results,” she said.