Raul Castro participating in talks with U.S., Cuba’s president says

Former Cuban president Raul Castro is involved in talks between the island and the United States, current President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Wednesday.

The talks, which Diaz-Canel said are in the early stages, come at a time of increasing tension between the two nations, with Cuba plagued by nationwide blackouts resulting from a crumbling power grid and an ongoing oil blockade implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened tariffs on any country that provides oil to Cuba.

Trump recently said he’d have “the honour of taking Cuba” soon.

The talks are being handled collectively by the Cuban government, Diaz-Canel told Spanish leftist leader Pablo Iglesias in a videotaped interview that lasted more than an hour and was shared by state media.

Though Diaz-Canel became president in 2018, the 94-year-old revolutionary leader Castro, brother of Fidel, is still considered the most powerful person in the nation.

Iglesias was in Cuba as part of a delegation of some 600 activists from 33 countries who arrived last week to deliver humanitarian aid.

“A process of conversations that leads to an agreement is a long process,” Diaz-Canel told Iglesias, who produced the interview for his crowdfunded TV channel, Canal RED.

“First, we must build a channel for dialogue. Then, we must build common agendas of interests for the parties, and the parties must demonstrate their intention to move forward and truly commit to the program based on the discussion of those agendas,” Diaz-Canel said.

Castro’s role in talks not quite clear

Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel as president, led historic talks with former U.S. president Barack Obama in 2014 that led to the reopening of embassies and re-establishment of diplomatic relations.

Trump in his two terms has opposed such policy, tightening sanctions even further, exacerbating a deep economic crisis and then undertaking an energy blockade. Trump’s current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is a Floridian son of Cuban exiles who has been outspoken in his antipathy toward the Castro regime.

In late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba as he pushes for a change in the island’s political model.

Although the initial threats were formally softened, the embargo has remained in place, and the island has not received any fuel shipments in the past three months.

Prolonged power outages and a near-paralysis of economic and social life are the visible consequences on the island, which in the last week experienced two nationwide blackouts that left millions without electricity as Cuba’s power grid continues to crumble.

The U.S. has said that Cuba was in negotiations, and Trump has threatened to take over the island soon. The threats come on the heels of the U.S. administration seizing Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro for prosecution in a military operation.

Diaz-Canel was more nuanced in his response and said his officials and those from the U.S. State Department “held recent talks.”

He also addressed speculation surrounding the role Castro would be playing in these overtures.

“The other thing they’ve tried to speculate about is that there are divisions within the leadership of the revolution,” Diaz-Canel said, not clarifying who he was referring to.

Raul Castro “is one of those who, along with me and in collaboration with other branches of the [Communist] Party, the government, and the state, has guided how we should conduct this dialogue process, if this dialogue process takes place,” the president added.

He noted that Castro is “the historical leader of this revolution, even though he has relinquished his responsibilities,” and that he maintains a “prestige earned with the people” due to “historical recognition that no one can deny.”

UN concerned about blackouts

Meanwhile, Francisco Pichon, resident co-ordinator of the United Nations in Cuba, warned that if the situation continued to spiral, it could provoke a “humanitarian crisis.” Pichon and other officials said it would require $94 million US to address the island’s energy crisis and hurricane damage from last year.

The crippled energy grid was slated to cut off 96,000 people, around 11,000 of them children, from getting surgeries they need, and cause 30,000 minors to fall behind of their vaccine schedules, he estimated.

It’s already cut around a million people, who depend on water deliveries from trucks, off from access to water.

The UN officials highlighted the desperate need for fuel to enter Cuba, but also solar power as a potential solution to keep schools and hospitals up and running and to pump water for irrigation.

“If the current situation continues and the country’s fuel reserves are depleted, we do fear an accelerated deterioration with the possible loss of lives,” said Pichon.