Mariela Castro Espín, director of the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) and deputy of the National Assembly of Cuba, stated that the Cuban people are ready to resist the pressures from the United States and that no external force has been able to "nullify the island's capacity for resistance."
The statements were made in March during the visit of the European delegation of the Nuestra América Solidarity Convoy to CENESEX and were broadcast this week by Cubainformación TV in a 44-minute interview.
"There is pain, there is much pain, there is much concern, but we are also taking action because we desire peace, to survive in peace," Castro asserted. without yielding, without getting on our knees, without accepting impositions."
Castro acknowledged the severity of the crisis that Cuba is experiencing, characterized by power outages of up to 18 hours a day and shortages of fuel, medicine, and food, but attributed the situation to the U.S. embargo rather than to the regime's policies.
"Governance of a country so heavily besieged by the most powerful military force in history is very difficult," he stated, adding that the Cuban electrical system "is very outdated because, precisely due to the blockade, we have not been able to modernize it."
Regarding the international solidarity represented by the convoy, Castro stated that "solidarity will not meet the needs of our people," but it has "a spiritual sense, a very human sense that provides a lot of strength."
"We are not completely isolated. The world, the people are alongside us, and this convoy comes as a representation of that feeling of the people. That has an immeasurable value for us," he expressed.
In one of the most aggressive passages of the interview, Castro described President Donald Trump as a deeply ignorant person who knows nothing about politics and even less about human rights, stating that "he repeats any nonsense that he is told every five minutes."
He also accused the United States of recruiting what he described as "LGBT mercenaries" in Cuba to create a "fictional opposition" and destabilize the regime, asserting that those attempts "have gone very badly for them."
Castro invoked the legacy of Fidel Castro to justify the regime's stance: "Even if the entire Central Committee of the Party disappears, the people will continue to fight. Even if everything we have achieved disappears, the struggle will continue."
The "Nuestra América" convoy, which brought together around 650 activists from 33 countries, arrived at the port of Havana on March 24 with about 30 tons of humanitarian aid that included food, medicine, and solar panels.
Castro's statements come in the context of Cuba's worst energy crisis in decades, exacerbated by the interruption of oil supplies from Venezuela since November 2025 and Executive Order 14380 from the Trump administration, which imposes tariffs on countries that deliver crude oil to the island.
Miguel Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged last Wednesday that Cuba absolutely lacks fuel for almost everything, marking an unusual public admission of the magnitude of the crisis that the Cuban people are facing.
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