Cuban president tells NBC he will not resign under US pressure
Miguel Díaz-Canel said in his first US television interview that Cuba is a sovereign state and will not submit to American demands for his resignation.
10:44 AM
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Thursday he will not resign under pressure from the United States, declaring in his first television interview with an American broadcaster that Cuba is a sovereign nation with the right to self-determination.
In remarks on NBC News, the 65-year-old president told journalist Kristen Welker: "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."
When asked if he would be willing to resign if it meant saving Cuba, Díaz-Canel questioned whether the journalist had posed the same question to other world leaders and whether the inquiry originated from the US State Department. He then stated that Cuban leadership positions are not filled by the US government.
"In Cuba, the people who are in leadership positions are not elected by the US government," Díaz-Canel said. "The concept of revolutionaries giving up and stepping down – it's not part of our vocabulary."
He added: "The US government that has implemented that hostile policy against Cuba has no moral to demand anything from Cuba."
The interview, a clip of which aired Thursday with a fuller version scheduled for Sunday broadcast, comes as the Trump administration has intensified pressure on the communist-ruled island. Washington has implemented what officials describe as a pressure campaign against Cuba, including a virtual oil blockade by threatening tariffs on any country attempting to sell oil to the island.
Cuba has faced an energy crisis since January, when its main oil supply from Venezuela was cut off following US actions against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The shortage has severely strained the island's economy and daily operations.
Díaz-Canel, who has served as president since 2018, emphasized Cuba's independence in his remarks. "We are a State soberano, we have autodeterminación, we have independence, we do not submit," he said in Spanish during the interview.
Russia has also weighed in on the situation, insisting it would never abandon or betray Cuba as its ally amid the US pressure campaign.