Cuba Not in Talks With US Following Trump’s Threat, Cuban Leader Says

Trump has warned that Cuba should forge a deal with the United States ‘before it is too late.’

Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez attends a plenary session of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 7, 2025. Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images

Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said on Jan. 12 that Cuba is not in talks with the United States, negating U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that discussions were taking place following the U.S. military attack on Venezuela.

U.S. forces carried out airstrikes on Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, on Jan. 3 and captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their residence to face drug and arms-related charges in the United States.

Following Maduro’s ouster, Trump said that communist-ruled Cuba would no longer live off Venezuelan oil and money and warned that Havana should forge a deal with Washington “before it is too late.”

Trump told reporters on Jan. 11 that Cuban and U.S. officials were in talks, but did not offer details. He said the U.S. government wants to take care of Cubans who were “forced out or left under duress,” calling them “great citizens of the United States.”

In a series of social media posts, Bermúdez stated that there were no discussions between his government and the U.S. side, apart from technical contacts on migration issues.

Bermúdez wrote on X that relations between the United States and Cuba “must be based on International Law rather than on hostility, threats, and economic coercion” in order for them to advance.

“We have always been willing to engage in a serious and responsible dialogue with the various governments of the United States, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of international law, reciprocal benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence,” he stated, according to a translation of the post.

The White House has not publicly commented on Bermúdez’s comments.

Responding to a media inquiry, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump’s primary goal is to tackle “the scourge of narcoterrorism” destroying communities in the country and that he will use “any tool at his disposal” to achieve it.

Cuba’s communist regime is a known ally of the Venezuelan government and has, for years, provided military and police to assist Venezuela in operations. At least 32 Cuban officers deployed to assist Maduro in Venezuela were killed in the U.S. attack on Jan. 3, according to the Cuban regime.

Trump said on Jan. 11 that Venezuela no longer needs protection from Cuban security forces now that it has the United States, “the most powerful military in the world,” to protect its officials.

“Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided ‘Security Services’ for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Bermúdez later responded by saying that Cuba is “ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.”

Cuba has relied on Venezuela’s oil supply for decades, with Venezuelan crude accounting for 58 percent of Cuba’s oil imports in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Between January 2025 and November 2025, Caracas sent an average of 27,000 barrels per day to Cuba, accounting for roughly 50 percent of the island’s oil deficit, or a quarter of Cuba’s total energy demand, according to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA’s shipping data and reports.

Following the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro, interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez has redirected oil shipments to the United States.

Jacob Burg contributed to this report.