The Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, said he would not resign under US pressure in his first television interview with an American broadcaster, while Russia insisted it would never abandon or betray its ally.
Diaz-Canel told NBC News on Thursday: “We have a free sovereign state, a free state. We have self-determination and independence, and we are not subjected to the designs of the United States.
“The US government that has implemented that hostile policy against Cuba has no moral to demand anything from Cuba,” the 65-year-old said in remarks that were translated to English. “The concept of revolutionaries giving up and stepping down – it’s not part of our vocabulary.”
Washington has waged a pressure campaign on communist-ruled Cuba, imposing a virtual oil blockade on the island by threatening tariffs on any country that attempts to sell oil to the island.
An energy crisis has crippled Cuba since January when its main supply from Venezuela was cut off after the US seized Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has openly floated the idea of “taking” Cuba and his administration labels leaders in Havana a threat to US national security.
As the tensions simmer between Washington, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov visited Cuba on Thursday, holding talks with Diaz-Canel.
Quoted by Russian news agencies, Ryabkov said Moscow had no intention of walking away from its interests in the western hemisphere no matter what the US might say.
Ryabkov said Moscow’s help for Cuba would go beyond the large shipload of oil it had sent to the island last month.
“I am certain that the events of recent weeks in our relations will have us moving forward to find solutions to the toughest problems … emerging from the illegal and absolutely unacceptable blockade of the island by the US,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying.
“We cannot betray Cuba. That is out of the question. We cannot leave it on its own.
“It is too early to say what the next steps will be. But it is clear we will not be limiting our supplies to the load that was aboard the tanker Anatoly Kolodkin.
“Russia has no plans to walk away from the western hemisphere, no matter what Washington might say.”
In late March, the tanker Anatoly Kolodkin carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil reached Cuba, marking its first oil delivery in three months.
Despite threatening tariffs in early January on countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, the Trump administration allowed the tanker to proceed.
“Cuba’s finished,” Trump said at the time. “They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter.”
Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it consumes, and it stopped receiving key Venezuelan oil shipments after the US attacked Venezuela in early January and arrested Maduro.
