Miguel Díaz-Canel responded this week to the protests occurring in Cuba with a statement that encapsulates the regime's strategy in the face of the worst energy crisis in the island's history: instead of taking responsibility, he redirected the public discontent toward the United States.
"The people bang pots and pans, some with more displeasure than others. I say: well, let them bang the pots and pans at the neighbors to the north, who are the ones keeping us in this blackout," he stated in an interview with the Puerto Rican weekly CLARIDAD, published on July 3rd.
The interview was conducted at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana. CLARIDAD is a Puerto Rican independentist weekly founded in 1959 and historically aligned with the Castro regime, which explains the privileged access to the leader and the condescending tone of the questions.
Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged during the conversation the magnitude of the collapse the population is experiencing: "There is a shortage of transportation, food, and medicine; there are prolonged power outages lasting more than twenty hours. This leads to dissatisfaction; no one can be happy; the people are suffering." However, he attributed the entirety of the crisis to the U.S. embargo and dismissed the regime's poor management as a cause.
"I can assure you that most of our people know what the cause of our problems is, and they understand that more than just poor management, as the spokespeople of imperialism try to blame us for... the main obstacle to our development is the prolonged blockade and the intensification of that blockade," he stated.
The statement about the pots and pans came when the journalist from CLARIDAD asked him why there has not been a social outbreak in Cuba.
Díaz-Canel's response turns the daily suffering of millions of Cubans into an anti-imperialist argument, ignoring that it is precisely the regime's policies—the dependency on Venezuelan oil, the deterioration of the electrical system, and decades of mismanagement—that have led the country to collapse.
The electricity generation deficit reached a historic record of 2,208 MW on June 25, leaving nearly 70% of the country without power. Nine of the 16 thermoelectric units are out of service, including the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant—the largest on the Island—which had its 17th malfunction in 2026, on the same day the interview was published. CEPAL projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP by 6.5% in 2026, the worst in Latin America.
While Díaz-Canel was speaking to a sympathetic media outlet, Cubans in Zamora, Marianao, were protesting after more than 24 hours without electricity, shouting "Freedom!". A resident of the neighborhood, Zea Gisselle, summarized it accurately: "They have fuel to patrol the neighborhood and repress, but to keep the country with guaranteed basic services, they do not."
The regime responded to the protests with militarization: armed black berets with long rifles, police operations, and internet outages. In June, Cubalex documented at least 38 arrests, including six minors. The Cuban Conflict Observatory recorded 1,311 protests in May 2026 alone, the highest known monthly figure, following 1,133 in April.
Santiago de Cuba also echoed again with pot-banging in the neighborhoods of Municipal, Santa Úrsula, Hoyo de Chicharrones, and Portuondo, as residents of El Vedado, El Cerro, and Regla took to the streets chanting: "We want to sleep with light; we want to live like people."
The leader concluded the interview with his usual rhetoric of resilience: "I am convinced that we will overcome this, that we will move forward, that we will prevail, and that we will not give up. We will not give up."
A promise that, for millions of Cubans who have been without electricity, water, or food for months, sounds increasingly hollow.
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