Miguel Díaz-Canel responded this Thursday to the threats from president Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with journalist Yalda Hakim from the British channel Sky News, recorded at the Cuban Presidency headquarters in Havana, where the Cuban leader stated that his country is prepared to "fight to the last drop of blood" to defend its sovereignty.
The interview was a direct response to the statements made by Trump on Wednesday in North Dakota, where he claimed that Cuba, "after many, many decades, is coming closer to our orbit".
When the journalist asked him if the regime was taking the possibility of military action seriously — reminding him that Trump acted when he threatened Venezuela and Iran — Díaz-Canel left no room for doubt: "We are willing to fight to the last drop of blood to defend our rights, our independence, our sovereignty, and our achievements."
Before reaching that statement, the Cuban leader attempted to portray the island as a nation uninvolved in conflict: "We are a peaceful country. We are not a threat to anyone. We offer a great deal of solidarity to the world. Cuba is not a nation in conflict. We are not a colony. We will not relinquish our sovereignty or our independence."
However, his tone grew harsher when referring to the pressure from Washington: "The threats, the constant rhetoric about aggression against our country by the United States government, the almost daily statements that are part of a media poisoning strategy and psychological warfare aimed at scaring our nation and destabilizing our society, are an outrage and an affront to the dignity of our people."
Díaz-Canel also accused the Trump administration of lying: "I believe that the current representatives of the U.S. government have been telling many lies. They have heavily manipulated international public opinion."
Despite the belligerent tone, the leader left a door ajar by stating that there are "possibilities for dialogue," although he warned that Cuban trust in Washington is low following Trump's actions in Venezuela and Iran.
The interview takes place at a time of heightened tension between both countries in decades. Since January 2026, the Trump administration has imposed more than 240 sanctions against the regime, including personal sanctions against Díaz-Canel himself, his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza, and Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín on June 4.
In military terms, the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier was deployed in the Caribbean on May 20 as part of Operation Southern Seas 2026, while Politico reported that the Pentagon has troops and equipment on standby awaiting a presidential order.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also raised his tone on Thursday, warning that “any threat must be taken seriously” and that a military aggression against Cuba “will be a bloodbath,” while labeling Marco Rubio as a “liar” and questioning his validity as a diplomatic interlocutor.
Cuba has also convened an extraordinary session of the UN General Assembly for July 7 with the aim of condemning the tightening of U.S. sanctions, in a context where bilateral talks, as Rodriguez himself stated on Tuesday, “show no progress”.
Filed under: