The Cuban-American journalist and former director of Radio Martí, Roberto Rodríguez Tejera, warned in an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba that the ongoing negotiations between Washington and Havana do not seek a genuine democratization of Cuba, but rather to replicate the Venezuelan model. The goal, he stated, is to find an interlocutor within the Cuban repressive apparatus that can ensure stability in exchange for handing over the island's wealth to American businessmen.
The comparison that Rodríguez Tejera uses to illustrate his thesis is straightforward: just as the United States accepted Delcy Rodríguez as a transitional figure in Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Washington would be seeking a functional equivalent in Cuba.
"The United States is seeking to find the person who can ensure social peace in Cuba. They are looking for their Diosdado Cabello and Delcy Rodríguez, who will guarantee power in order to hand over all of Cuba's wealth to American businessmen. For me, as a Cuban, that is unacceptable," he declared.
The journalist makes a distinction between the thaw initiated by Barack Obama in 2014 and the current discussions. Regarding that process, he points out that it was carried out with absolute secrecy. "This negotiation was conducted in total and complete secrecy. So much so that the State Department was not aware; not only did we Cubans not find out, but the State Department was not aware either."
Although he acknowledges that at that moment the Cubans were not “all the Cubans that should have been” at the negotiation table, he argues that the objective was different: to open the Cuban economy, not to perpetuate the regime. Fidel Castro, according to Rodríguez Tejera, reacted with a "tantrum" upon realizing that he was being offered "a poisonous pill" and halted the process.
The consequences of that halt, in his view, are direct. "If at that moment Cuba had taken a different direction, 11J would not have happened, and Cuba would not be in the extremely impoverished situation it is in now."
For Rodríguez Tejera, the responsibility for the Cuban crisis unequivocally lies with those who have governed the island for decades. "The leaders of the regime bear 90% of the responsibility. They must be replaced, not perpetuated through negotiations," he stated, referring directly to what he sees as the central risk of the current talks.
These negotiations, he added, are a fact confirmed by both parties, although with different versions regarding their scope. Last Friday, Trump stated before the UN that the United States and Cuba "will reach an agreement" and ruled out military intervention, while the minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla acknowledged conversations but denied the existence of a formal table. Journalistic reports suggest that the negotiations may have involved Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as "El Cangrejo," as an informal interlocutor, bypassing the channels of Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The former director of Radio Martí also mentioned in the interview the opposers who rely on grants in the United States. He applied this logic to CiberCuba itself, questioning whether the medium could practice the same independent journalism if it depended on U.S. government funding. "Probably, but maybe not. You are bearing the cost of doing independent journalism and you are having extraordinary success."
Rodríguez Tejera's warning comes at a time when the details of a potential secret agreement between Cuba and the U.S. remain unknown, despite various leaks, and when a former negotiator of Obama's thaw, Ricardo Zúñiga, admitted in January 2026 that there are no internal divisions in Cuba that would allow for a negotiated exit as seen in Venezuela, due to the persistence of a "hardcore" faction within the regime.
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