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Cubans, who often tune out when their leaders give speeches, were more interested than usual on Thursday when President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed the nation on television following rumors that the Cuban government is in talks with the Trump administration about ending one-party rule.
US President Donald Trump said on February 1 that talks were ongoing. “Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time, but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to support it,” he said. “We are talking to people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what will happen.”
On Thursday, Díaz-Canel only said that Cuba is “ready to engage in dialogue with the United States, dialogue on any topic, but without pressure or preconditions.”
His tone changed from six days beforewhen he accused Trump of “behaving like Hitler, with a criminal policy of contempt, aimed at taking over world power.”
Díaz-Canel also promised that there would be an improvement in the island’s catastrophic energy shortages in the next few weeks – a claim that drew great skepticism from observers.
Blockages and blackouts
Trump executive order since Jan. 29, it has placed new sanctions on countries that sell oil to Cuba, effectively blocking the supply of the fuel that powers the island’s crumbling power grid. Most of Cuba’s oil came from Venezuela, but that source was cut off when the US captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, and attacked the capital last month.
Cuba’s electricity grid is in dire straits, and daily blackouts were the norm for many Cubans even before the oil embargo.
The country can produce about 30 percent of the oil it needs, but it is heavy and sulphurous, and its use has damaged production stations that are already well past their intended lifespans. Efforts to introduce solar energy have had limited success due to a lack of batteries.
Eloy Viera, a Cuban Canadian who coordinates the publication on Cuban affairs Contactexpressed skepticism about Díaz-Canel’s promises that the energy situation would improve in the coming weeks.
“My family that lives in Cienfuegos in central Cuba is without power for 50 or 60 hours, then they get service for four to five hours, then another blackout for 40 to 50 hours,” he said.
The new energy crisis came after Cuba experienced an unprecedented cold spell, with low temperatures recorded on the island during first time ever.
Oil analysts believe the island has only a few weeks of fuel lefteven with the continuous power outages imposed by the government and the suspension of public transport reported in many places.
Mexico initially stepped up to replace supplies coming from Venezuela, but state oil company Pemex changed its mind on January 26. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was forced to deny that Mexico changed course under pressure from the Trump administration, which has been widely reported.
The conditions are so dire that Viera said he believes there could be mass protests like those in July 2021which the communist authorities violently repressed.
“And I’m pretty sure the answer will be the use of force, because that’s what they have right now. We could see a scenario similar to what we saw in Iran.”
Cuba’s power grid suffered a partial collapse early Wednesday, leaving the capital Havana and much of western Cuba in the dark. In the midst of the energy crisis, many parts of the country are experiencing daily power outages lasting 20 hours or more.
Cuban Canadian Michael Lima Cuadra of the human rights group Democratic Spaces shares the concern that Cuba could slide into violence.
The regime’s greatest fear, he said, is not Washington. “The biggest threat is the Cuban people. They have always been afraid that people will take to the streets and demand democracy. Yes, they see the US as a threat. But democratic change is the real fear.”
Possible secret meetings in Mexico
reports That Alejandro Castro Espín has already spoken directly with the CIA in Mexico has caused a lot of excitement this week, but also some skepticism.
Castro Espín is the son of Raúl Castro—Fidel’s brother, former president and the man widely believed to hold real power in Cuba—and revolutionary heroine Vilma Espín. He holds the rank of brigadier general of the Cuban army.
He was also involved in secret talks with the Obama administration 12 years ago that led to a brief thaw in relations.
Cubans see Castro Espín as part of a less visible but more influential wing of communist rule.
“In Cuba,” said Buenos Aires-based Cuban lawyer Alain Espinoza of the rights group Cubalex“power has always been divided between those who show their faces, such as Díaz-Canel and the Council of State, and those who control the Cuban economy behind the scenes, such as Alejandro Castro Espín — and behind him large economic concerns, including military-owned holdings GAESA, who are the ones who control all the money and the economy of Cuba.”
Espinoza said he did not believe the regime as a whole would ever agree to leave power, but “we cannot rule out the possibility that those who control the Cuban economy might be willing to negotiate an exit that would allow them to keep some of the wealth they have acquired without having to fear legal consequences or prosecution.”
The deal that could come out of such talks could look a lot like the deal with Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela’s acting president, where some elements within the regime are turning against others to secure better terms for themselves than Washington.
But many Cubans are skeptical.
Cubans doubt that the regime will relinquish its power
Viera noted that Díaz-Canel did not repeat the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s statement from a few days earlier, which emphasized Cuba’s “red lines” with Washington. Instead, the president said he was ready to talk about “significant” matters. However, Viera doubted that this would involve relinquishing power.
“I think that’s the principle that the United States wants to negotiate with them. But they’re not thinking about it because their survival is at stake right now,” Viera told CBC News.
“They know they have a very short window of time. They know the Republican Party will face another election in November that could change Congress,” he said.
“They will try to survive for six, seven months, trying to cut every cost, put every burden they can on the shoulders of the people, because what they want now is to do what they did for 67 years: buy time. That was their policy, surviving one day at a time.”
Comparisons with Venezuela
Some Cuban dissidents and analysts said they were unconvinced by reports of talks with the CIA in Mexico.
If the talks do happen, many Cubans worry that the US will only demand changes to the existing regime, and not actual regime change.
When Venezuelan leader Maduro was spirited away to a US prison cell, his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was allowed to take his place, apparently indefinitely. That outcome he disappointed many Venezuelanswho hoped that the US would demand that the opposition’s victory in the 2024 elections be respected or that they would seek new multi-party elections.
“Part of the elite could withdraw and seek some kind of deal with the United States,” said former Cuban diplomat and party member Juan Antonio Blanco, now head of a Madrid-based pro-democracy group. Cuba 21st century. Blanco suspects the Trump administration has another Rodríguez-type solution in mind for his homeland.
“I’m sure they’re trying. I mean, that would be completely normal for the United States.”
The LIBERTAD Act establishes the law
But unlike the case of Venezuela, Blanco said, no US president has the freedom to independently organize the transition to democracy in Cuba. This is because the steps such a transition must follow are already detailed in the Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity Act (LIBERTAD) of 1996, known as the Helms-Burton Act.
“He says that if there is a transitional government in Cuba – it doesn’t matter if it comes from Mars or from an American invasion or from the Cuban government or part of the government or the opposition that knocked out the government – any transitional government would have to immediately establish civil and political rights.”
The law also mandates that free elections must be held within 18 months of the start of the transition.
In Venezuela, Trump said elections were “years away,” falsely claiming the country was unable to hold them. (Venezuela has a proven track record of holding fair elections; the problem was the socialist government’s unwillingness to honor the results.)
Hope and anxiety for the future
Cuban dissidents from different political streams share the same worries about the future: fears of violence and crackdowns, concerns that impoverished Cubans could become an underclass in their own country if rich exiles return and, more recently, unease that Washington might seek a compromise solution in Havana that would leave the dictatorship in control.
“I think we all have the same doubts,” said Cuban lawyer Espinoza. “Everyone is unhappy that part of that Chavista elite, which has done so much harm to the Venezuelan people, can remain in power with impunity. No one will be happy with that kind of transition (in Cuba).”
Lima Cuadra, of the human rights group Democratic Spaces, said the events in Venezuela were disappointing. “The American solution in Venezuela is called ‘regime management’ instead of regime change. For the transition to be successful, you have to remove all the elements from the old regime, those people from the state security who tend to create a mafia and be an obstacle to democracy.”
“The US must listen to what Cuban fighters for democracy on the islands are asking for, what Cubans in exile in the US and other parts of the world are asking for. Free elections must be on the table.”
And Lima Cuadra said that there is no reason for other countries to accept that the future of Cuba is only a concern of Washington.
“Canada also has diplomatic tools that it can use — the same diplomatic tools that Canada uses on Iran, on Venezuela, on Belarus, like targeted sanctions. And Canada is not doing that. It’s still on the same old policy of silence and inaction.”
