President Donald Trump declared this Tuesday that he feels "very proud" of Cuban Americans, calling them "incredible people" who have suffered greatly, lost family members, and endured imprisonment, in remarks shared in a video on social media that also included an openness to a possible diplomatic agreement with Cuba.
"I am very proud of the Cuban Americans. They have been incredible people. Many of them have lost family members, have suffered a great deal themselves, and have been imprisoned," said Trump.
In response to the question of whether he believes a "diplomatic agreement with Cuba" is possible, the president replied: “I believe so. Yes, I believe so.”
The words from this Tuesday are part of a series of repeated praises to the Cuban-American community throughout 2026.
In March, Trump had already described them as "very entrepreneurial and very intelligent", highlighting the Fanjul family as an example of business success and noting that they have been unable to visit Cuba for about 50 years.
On March 10, during an appearance at the Trump National Doral in Miami, the leader described Cuban-American entrepreneurs as "the most successful" in the United States.
These statements come at one of the times of greatest tension and diplomatic activity between Washington and Havana in decades.
On May 14 and 15, the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, traveled to Havana and met with Cuban officials, including Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro, to convey Washington's willingness to engage in dialogue on economic and security matters in exchange for "fundamental changes."
After that visit, Trump was blunt: “They are going to have to come to us”.
The previous negotiations in April failed after the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected an ultimatum to release political prisoners like Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo, whose deadline expired on April 24 without an agreement.
The regime then established "red lines" and rejected negotiating its sovereignty, while Díaz-Canel declared that "no aggressor will be able to subdue Cuba."
Trump's policy combines signals of openness with maximum pressure: on May 1, he signed an executive order expanding sanctions against officials of the regime in the energy, defense, metals, and finance sectors, and on May 2 threatened to send the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to Cuban shores.
Last Monday, Politico published that "the odds of Trump attacking Cuba are going up", in a context where the Cuban-American base in Florida shows signs of division between those who support a pragmatic agreement and those who demand the total overthrow of the regime as a non-negotiable condition.
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