Cuba has opened talks with the U.S. government, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Friday, as an oil blockade imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump pushes the Communist-run nation deeper into economic crisis, Reuters reports.
"These talks have been aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences we have between the two nations," Diaz-Canel said in a video aired on state television.
Diaz-Canel said he hoped the negotiations would move the two long-time rivals "away from confrontation."
Cuba is growing increasingly desperate. The Caribbean nation's citizens, already exhausted by years of economic crisis and shortages, now live the majority of their days without electricity. Rising prices, strictly rationed fuel and medicine shortages have pushed many to the breaking point.
Since the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and removed from power Cuba's most important foreign benefactor in January, Trump has cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threatened to slap tariffs on any country that sells oil to Cuba.
Trump in recent weeks had made a series of statements, saying Cuba was on the verge of collapse or eager to make a deal with the United States. On Monday he said Cuba may be subject to a "friendly takeover," then added, "it may not be a friendly takeover."
"As the President stated, we are talking to Cuba, whose leaders should make a deal, which he believes 'would be very easily made'," a White House official said, on condition of anonymity.
"Cuba is a failing nation whose rulers have had a major setback with the loss of support from Venezuela and with Mexico ceasing to send them oil," the official said, in an emailed statement.
Cubans on the streets of Havana welcomed the news as a possible solution to the power blackouts, which this week provoked protests in which Reuters observed Havana residents banging on kitchen pots in the dark.
"We are already overwhelmed, we can't take this situation anymore, and I think that this conversation between Cuba and the United States should lead to a better situation," said Yaimi Gonzalez, a 44-year-old homemaker.
