“For us, the results of these elections are not new. It was an expected scenario,” said Díaz-Canel.
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 27 November 2024 — The Cuban government referred for the first time on Wednesday to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections 22 days ago and said that the result was within expectations, so “the country is prepared.”
President Miguel Díaz-Canel made these statements during an informal but planned meeting with a group of residents of the municipality of Lajas, in Cienfuegos, during one of his visits to the provinces without international media. His speech was broadcast on state television and on official social media profiles.
“For us, the results of these elections are not new. It was an expected scenario,” said Díaz-Canel, who is also first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal party). “It was a probable scenario and we had been preparing for this scenario,” he added.
Díaz-Canel criticized the US sanctions against the island, which he described as “perverse and genocidal.” He recalled that the last series of sanctions was imposed during the first term of the Republican Trump and that the current US president, Democrat Joe Biden, has “maintained the same position of hostility.”
As usual in his speech, he reiterated that the United States sanctions are the cause of the current crisis that the country is suffering.
The president, who expressed his willingness to engage in dialogue “on equal terms” and “without impositions” with Washington, said that his government will not accept “interference” nor will it renounce its “model of socialist construction.”
As is customary in his discourse, he reiterated that US sanctions are the cause of the current crisis in the country, blaming them for the blackouts and shortages of basic goods such as food and medicine. “It is true that we have suffered,” the president acknowledged.
The serious crisis, which has lasted for five years, has generated growing discontent, visible in the unusual protests that have been recorded in recent years and the unprecedented migratory exodus that the country is experiencing.
Cuba’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 1.9% in 2023, according to official figures, and the government has already announced that it does not expect growth in the current year.
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