Cuba’s president tells NBC News that he will not step down
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel informed NBC News’ Meet the Press that he would not step down in his first interview with a US community, a portion of which was broadcast Thursday.
In a virtually five-minute clip that is a part of an extended interview scheduled to air on Sunday, journalist Kristen Welker requested Díaz-Canel if he could be “willing to step down if it meant saving Cuba. ”
Before answering, Díaz-Canel requested if she had ever posed that query to another president on this planet: “Is that a question from you, or is it coming from the State Department of the US government?”
Díaz-Canel added: “In Cuba, the people who are in leadership position are not elected by the US government, and they don’t have a mandate from the US government. We have a free sovereign state.”
He stated he turned president not out of a “personal ambition or corporate ambition or even a party ambition,” however due to a mandate by the individuals.
“If the Cuban people understand that I am not fit for office, that I have no reason to be here, then I should not be holding this position of president, I will respond to them,” he stated.
The interview comes as tensions between Cuba and the US stay excessive regardless of either side acknowledging talksthough no particulars have been shared.
Díaz-Canel accused the US authorities of implementing a “hostile policy” in opposition to Cuba and stated it has “no moral to demand anything from Cuba.”
He stated the US ought to acknowledge how a lot the insurance policies have price the Cuban individuals “and how much they have deprived the American people from a normal relationship with the Cuban people.”
Díaz-Canel famous that Cuba is serious about partaking in dialogue and discussing any matter with out circumstances, “not demanding changes from our political system as we are not demanding change from the American system, about which we have a number of doubts.”
Cuba blames US vitality blockade for its deepening woeswith a scarcity of petroleum affecting the island’s well being system, public transportation and the manufacturing of products and companies.
In late March, a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil arrived in Cubamarking the island’s first oil cargo in three months. Russia has promised to ship a second tanker.
Despite threatening tariffs in early January On international locations that promote or present oil to Cuba, the administration of US President Donald Trump allowed the tanker to proceed.
“Cuba’s finished,” Trump stated on 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 solely 40% of the gasoline it consumes, and it stopped receiving key oil shipments from Venezuela after the US attacked the South American nation in early January and arrested its then leader.
