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Miguel Díaz-Canel issued a new warning to Washington this Friday in an extensive interview granted to the Spanish media elDiario.es from Havana: "We do not want war, we want dialogue, we want to move away from confrontation, but we do not fear war."
The statement comes at a time of peak tension between Cuba and the United States in decades, with an unprecedented U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean and an escalation of sanctions that has paralyzed entire sectors of the Cuban economy.
The Cuban leader directly accused President Donald Trump of pursuing "the suffocation of Cuba to provoke a social explosion and have the pretext to intervene," and outlined three scenarios that, according to him, the U.S. administration is considering: provoking a social collapse to intervene under the guise of humanitarian aid, imposing coercive dialogue to take control of the Cuban economy and force a change in the political system, and executing a direct military aggression.
In light of these hypotheses, Díaz-Canel defended the Cuban military doctrine known as "Total People's War": "It is not an offensive doctrine; it is a defense doctrine that involves the entire population in our defense."
The ruler also warned about the human cost of a potential invasion: "Invading Cuba would cost hundreds of thousands of Cuban lives, but it would also lead to significant human losses for the invader and substantial losses in various aspects. It would be a complex outcome for the United States itself and would also pose a threat to the stability and security of Latin America and the Caribbean."
It is not the first time that Díaz-Canel has resorted to this type of rhetoric. In April, he declared to Newsweek that Cuba would respond with guerrilla warfare to any military aggression, and on May 18 he warned that an attack would lead to a bloodbath with incalculable consequences.
The context surrounding these statements is extremely pressured. Trump signed an executive order on May 1 that internationalized secondary sanctions against Cuba, impacting companies and citizens from any country with ties to the island. As a direct consequence, the Spanish hotel chains Iberostar and Meliá announced their withdrawal from the country, and credit card systems ceased operations on the island.
In May, the United States deployed more than 1,300 Marines and the USS Nimitz strike group in the Caribbean as part of Operation Southern Seas 2026, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana to meet with high-ranking officials of the regime.
Díaz-Canel also described the humanitarian devastation facing the island: over 100,000 patients on the surgical waiting list, including more than 12,000 children, hospitals without power due to blackouts, and 67% of the essential medications not reaching the population.
The leader demanded that the European Union and Spain take action: "The EU and Spain must protect their businesses and their citizens. They cannot allow extraterritorial laws from another country to be imposed on them."
Regarding the possibility of dialogue with Washington, Díaz-Canel set conditions that the regime considers non-negotiable: "There can be no imposition of a change in political system. Internal affairs of our country are not up for discussion. Dialogue cannot be based on a position of strength or on pressure towards the country."
The interview, the longest in a series of similar statements since April, is published days before the fifth anniversary of July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets in the largest protests against the dictatorship in decades.
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