The president admits that U.S. pressure contributed to “accelerating” the reforms aimed at “perfecting socialist construction, not restoring capitalism.”
14ymedio, Madrid, June 25, 2026 — Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected in an interview broadcast this Wednesday the idea that the economic reforms he announced last week were adopted because of U.S. pressure. “Trump does not rule Cuba, nor does the U.S. government rule Cuba. Cuba is sovereign,” he told Cuban journalist Roberto Cavada, anchor of Telenoticias in the Dominican Republic. Nevertheless, the president admitted that the current “situation of maximum pressure” also “leads us to accelerate a bit, to decide more quickly, to have to do something.”
The centerpiece of the interview was those reforms, whose legitimacy Díaz-Canel spent a long introduction defending. The president cited Fidel Castro’s dollarization measures in the 1990s and Raúl Castro’s 2011 economic guidelines as previous turning points in the Cuban economy. “Things were approved that today seem very normal to us, but that under those conditions had a tremendous impact,” he said. Having established that foundation, he justified the current shift. “These are times of transformation.”
The president maintained, lest there be any doubt, that the inspiration has been China, though adapted to the particular circumstances created by the sanctions on Cuba. He also noted that economists have been consulted and emphasized that the process remains open to new contributions, in addition to the foundations that still need to be established. This became evident when Cavada asked him what guarantees exist for potential investors. Díaz-Canel could only offer generalities and ultimately admitted that they have yet to be defined. “It is one of the areas where I believe we need to make more progress,” he said. When pressed again about the legal framework, he stated that one exists but that “it needs to be expanded in terms of concessions,” referring primarily to usufruct rights.
The president argued for going even further in providing flexibility and incentives for investment by Cubans living abroad—Cavada himself emigrated from Ciego de Ávila to Havana and later to the Dominican Republic—and left behind a statement that calls into question the policies of his predecessors, especially the most recent one. “If you support foreign investment, it makes no sense not to support investment by your own nationals in any of its forms.”
“If you support foreign investment, it makes no sense not to support investment by your own nationals in any of its forms”
Díaz-Canel also raised a fundamental issue. The approved measures may run into limitations imposed by the United States, a point also highlighted by independent economist Pavel Vidal in his latest analysis for the Observatory of Currencies and Finance (OMFi). “The second executive order of May 1 restricts companies from trading with Cuba or doing business with Cuba. And that part is never discussed,” he pointed out.
Cavada further pursued the issue of Washington and reminded the president that only days ago Donald Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, indicated that there were conversations with the Cuban regime. “If they make smart decisions, we’ll have a much better relationship,” Vance said. Díaz-Canel cast doubt on the possibility of improved understanding because, in his view, “they will never understand what we do nor accept what we do because what they aspire to is a different Cuba. They aspire to a Cuba that is completely dependent on the U.S. and completely privatized.”
Nevertheless, he again acknowledged that conversations are taking place and that a communication channel remains open, without providing new details, but he insisted that there can be no pressure and that if Cuba yielded to it, the demands would never end. “There is room for U.S. entities and entrepreneurs to invest. There is every possibility of working together on issues of common interest in terms of cooperation,” he said.
Díaz-Canel did not appear to view an invasion as the most likely scenario, but he admitted it was entirely possible and cited two recent precedents, close both in time and political distance: Venezuela, where the United States interrupted talks in an attempt to capture Nicolás Maduro, and Iran, where negotiations were halted by a bombing campaign. “There is a whole combination of media warfare and psychological warfare aimed at intimidating us,” he argued, adding that Cuba is preparing not to attack, he emphasized, but to defend itself. He also left a message: his rhetoric is not threatening but intended “to ensure we are respected and that they understand the cost of a military adventure.”
Another large portion of the interview focused on the daily drama of the energy crisis. Díaz-Canel tried to dispel what he called the “myth” of subsidies. “They have said that we refused to pay for fuel and that we went around begging for fuel. That is not true,” he began, explaining the barter mechanisms Cuba used with the Soviet Union—sugar in exchange for fuel—and with Venezuela, through medical services. Later, because of sanctions on Caracas, Cuba had to “go out into the international market.”
“And nobody gave us fuel for free,” he repeated three times. Now, he complained, those who used to sell fuel to Cuba are prohibited from doing so. He added that there have even been ships headed to Cuba that were prevented from arriving.
Even so, he defended his administration’s work on renewable energy. “If that were not in place, we would be living from one blackout to another because the system would be completely unstable, and during daylight hours it would not be capable of supplying electricity to even 20% of the population,” he argued. This despite the fact that solar parks remain underutilized, largely because the thermoelectric plants are so fragile that photovoltaic output must be restricted to avoid destabilizing the grid, as Cuban authorities themselves have explained.
Particularly striking was his reference to withholding data on domestic oil production, framing it almost as a matter of national security. “I’m not going to give figures because I don’t want anyone calculating our needs or determining how far we can or cannot go. But it is crude that is being produced. It has always been said that it is heavy crude with a high sulfur content, but during the Special Period our thermoelectric plants were adapted to process it,” he said when asked about production levels.
Díaz-Canel admitted that the companies working to drill wells and increase crude oil and natural gas production have had to leave because of sanctions, referring to the Canadian company Sherritt and the Australian company Melbana
He also insisted that scientific advances have made it possible to refine Cuba’s extra-heavy crude and that it is being used, although production volumes remain limited. Regarding fuel imported by private actors, he said that no more than 40,000 tons have entered through that route, equivalent to “one ship out of the many ships Cuba needs in a single month.”
Another reference to the U.S. arose in the context of humanitarian aid. Here the president did provide some concrete figures, stating that of the initial $3 million announced by Marco Rubio after Hurricane Melissa and distributed through Caritas, between $2.6 million and $2.8 million has been spent so far, reaching about 8,000 families. “Then they announced an additional $6 million in aid that is only now beginning to be implemented,” he added.
As for the subsequent $100 million package, Díaz-Canel questioned the State Department’s plan to begin distributing it after September. “Why? We don’t know,” he said. He also noted that food and medicine would not be included. “Then what is the aid for? We’ll have to see, because they haven’t defined it, they haven’t clearly said what it’s for,” he protested, while also insisting that the cooperation is appreciated and accepted, though he still described it as “hypocritical.”
“It means nothing compared to the damage the embargo has caused Cuba,” he reproached.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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