Cuba’s president says he’s ‘not stepping down’ in interview with NBC News

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel insisted he would “not resign” in an interview with Kristen Welker, moderator of NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” in Havana on Thursday.

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Díaz-Canel bristled when Welker asked him if he would be “willing to resign to save your country” during his first interview with a US television network.

“In Cuba, the people who hold leadership positions are not elected by the U.S. government, and they do not have a mandate from the U.S. government. We have a sovereign and free state, a free state. We have self-determination and independence, and we are not subject to the designs of the United States,” Díaz-Canel said.

“Resigning is not in our vocabulary,” Díaz-Canel said.

Watch “Meet the Press” on Sunday for the exclusive extended interview and visit meetthepress.com for the full interview.

The Cuban president’s response comes as the Trump administration has stepped up pressure on the communist country and called for a change of government. President Donald Trump has called Cuba a “failed nation” and said last month that it may have been a “friendly takeover, but maybe not a friendly takeover.”

In response to Díaz-Canel’s comments Thursday, a White House official said the Trump administration was in talks with Cuba, whose leaders want and should reach a deal, which Trump said “would be very easy to do.”

“Cuba is a failed nation whose leaders suffered a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela,” a White House official said Thursday.

Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Cuba a “disaster,” saying it was because “their economic system wasn’t working.”

“Cubans can only succeed if they leave the country,” said Rubio, whose parents left Cuba in the 1950s, a few years before Fidel Castro’s communists took power.

“This has to change, and for that to change, you have to change those responsible,” Rubio said, adding that this requires changing the country’s economic model.

Díaz-Canel took issue with being asked if he would resign, asking: “Are you asking Trump that question? and if the question “came from the US State Department”

Díaz-Canel insisted that the country’s leaders “are elected by the people, although there is a discourse that tries to ignore it. Each of us, before becoming part of a leadership role, must be elected at the local level in our electoral district by thousands of Cubans.”

Cuba’s communist government, however, is a one-party system that does not allow the creation of an opposition party. Candidates for the country’s National Assembly are chosen in local elections, but critics point out that there is no credible opposition, little transparency and that all candidates must be from the Communist Party.

Over the past two months, the Cuban government has waged a media campaign, granting several media outlets, including NBC News, interviews with various government officials and responding to growing pressure from the United States amid near economic collapse.

Cuban officials denounced the actions of the Trump administration, which cut off the flow of Venezuelan oil to the country after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The United States has also threatened to impose tariffs on any country selling or supplying oil to Cuba. Oil reserves dwindled and created even more fuel shortages, leading to more power outages across the country.

These conditions have further strained an island nation that has suffered for years from an economic crisis, power outages and shortages of food and medicine.

Trump recently said he had “no problem” with the arrival of a Russian tanker carrying crude oil, saying he didn’t think it would help prop up the Cuban government. It was the first tanker to dock in three months. Russia said it was preparing a second oil shipment to the island.

But that hasn’t been enough, as Cuba’s government and residents decry the ongoing oil shortage and lack of other necessities, which Díaz-Canel and other officials have blamed on the U.S. economic embargo that has been in place for more than 50 years.

The Trump administration has pushed back on Cuba’s previous statements. Rubio said on March 27 that “there is no naval blockade around Cuba” and that the reason Cuba does not have fuel “is because they want it for free and people don’t give oil and fuel for free unless it’s the Soviet Union subsidizing them or Maduro subsidizing them.”

Díaz-Canel blamed American policy for the current state of relations between the two countries.

“I think the most important thing would be for them to understand and take this critical position, a sincere position, and recognize how much this has cost the Cuban people – and how much they have deprived the American people of a normal relationship with the Cuban people. »

Trump said Rubio was in talks with Cuba, and Cuban officials acknowledged the talks without either government going into detail.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal told Agence France-Presse this week that negotiations between Cuba and the United States on de-escalating tensions were still at a “very preliminary” stage.