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Miguel Díaz-Canel responded this Thursday to the threats from President Donald Trump in an exclusive interview with journalist Yalda Hakim of the British channel Sky News, recorded at the Presidential Palace in Cuba, Havana, where the Cuban leader stated that his country is ready to "fight to the last drop of blood" to defend its sovereignty.
The interview was a direct response to the statements that Trump made 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 surrender our sovereignty or our independence."
However, his tone hardened when referring to the pressure from Washington: "The threats, the constant rhetoric about an aggression against our country by the government of the United States, the nearly daily statements that are part of a strategy of media poisoning and psychological warfare to frighten our country and destabilize 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 United States government have been telling many lies. They have significantly manipulated international public opinion."
Despite the belligerent tone, the leader left a small opening by noting that there are "possibilities for dialogue," although he warned that Cuba's 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 over 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 matters, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was deployed in the Caribbean on May 20 as part of Operation Southern Seas 2026, while Politico reported that the Pentagon has troops and weaponry on standby awaiting a presidential order.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also raised his tone this Thursday, warning that "any threat should be taken seriously" and that a military aggression against Cuba "will be a bloodbath," while labeling Marco Rubio a "liar" and questioning his validity as a diplomatic interlocutor.
Cuba has also called for an extraordinary session of the UN General Assembly on July 7 with the aim of denouncing the tightening of U.S. sanctions, in a context where bilateral talks, as stated by Rodríguez himself on Tuesday, "show no progress".
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