Cuba Confirms Secret Talks With U.S. Amid Energy Crisis

Cuba’s leader Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed Friday that his government held recent talks with the United States, the first time Cuba has publicly acknowledged what had been a subject of speculation as the island nation faces a deepening energy crisis.

Díaz-Canel said in a speech that the discussions “were aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between our two nations,” adding that “international factors facilitated these exchanges.” He did not identify those factors or provide any details about what was discussed.

The confirmation came shortly before two U.S. officials revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had met secretly last month with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of retired Cuban leader Raul Castro, on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community leaders meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. At the time of that meeting, Rubio declined to say whether he had spoken with anyone connected to the Cuban government. The White House did not return a request for comment Friday.

The diplomatic back-channel emerges at a moment of serious humanitarian strain inside Cuba. Díaz-Canel said no petroleum shipments have reached the island in three months, a situation he attributed to what he called a U.S. energy blockade. Cuba produces roughly 40 percent of its own petroleum, but Díaz-Canel acknowledged that domestic production has not come close to meeting national demand.

The fuel shortage has forced two power plants offline and restricted generation capacity at solar parks across the island. Cuba’s western region suffered a major blackout last week, leaving millions of residents without electricity. The government has been relying on a combination of natural gas, solar power and thermoelectric plants to keep some power flowing.

The human cost is significant. Díaz-Canel said the energy crisis has disrupted communications, transportation and education. Perhaps most starkly, tens of thousands of surgeries have been postponed because hospitals cannot sustain reliable power. More than 115 bakeries across the island have shifted to burning firewood or coal to keep operating.

“The impact is tremendous,” Díaz-Canel said.

The Cuban government has also begun a rapid solar deployment effort, with 955 solar panels installed as part of an attempt to compensate for lost generating capacity.

The Trump administration’s posture toward Cuba has been confrontational. President Trump said recently that Cuba “is going to fall,” and his administration has separately explored potential criminal charges targeting the island’s leadership, according to a source familiar with those discussions. Cuba also announced this week that it will release 51 prisoners, a move that came without advance notice and could be connected to the diplomatic back-channel now coming into public view.

The combination of secret talks and public pressure is a familiar playbook in U.S.-Cuba relations, though it creates a complicated read on where policy is actually headed. Rubio, who is Cuban American and has spent his career as one of Washington’s most vocal Cuba hardliners, is an unlikely figure to be sitting across the table from a Castro family member. That he did so suggests the administration sees some value in a channel, even while keeping its public rhetoric sharp.

For Dallas-area observers of Texas politics, the Cuba situation connects to a broader set of questions about how the Trump administration manages its Latin America portfolio. Texas has significant trade and migration exposure to the Caribbean and Central America, and energy policy decisions that affect regional stability tend to ripple northward. Senator John Cornyn and other members of the Texas delegation have generally aligned with the administration’s hardline approach to Havana, but the emergence of quiet diplomacy could test how unified that position remains if talks produce any concrete outcomes.

For now, the Cuban government has confirmed the talks exist. The U.S. government has not. What either side is actually willing to put on the table is still unknown, and the energy crisis grinding through Cuba’s hospitals, bakeries and power grids is not waiting for a diplomatic resolution.