Cuba says it is not currently negotiating with the United States, as the Trump administration continues its campaign of economic pressure on the island. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on Monday that Havana and Washington are not negotiating, and that there is no agenda for future talks. His comments came during a media conference, as he laid out Cuba’s latest estimate of the damage caused by the decades-old US embargo, imposed since former leader Fidel Castro‘s communist revolution in 1959. The Cuban government says the US embargo cost its economy $8bn between March 2025 and February 2026, the highest figure yet recorded and seven percent more than in the previous reporting period.
The total does not include some of Washington’s more recent sanctions, including restrictions on the island’s energy supply imposed in January and secondary sanctions imposed in May, said Rodriguez. In a post on X, Rodríguez called the policy one of “economic asphyxiation” and described the blockade, which Havana has long blamed for shortages and economic hardships, as “genocidal”. “These are long months of living with only two or three hours of electricity per day or less,” Rodríguez wrote, painting a bleak picture of what the country’s worsening energy crisis looks like for Cubans. He described food spoiling without refrigeration, parents fanning their babies through the heat, children trying to do their schoolwork in the dark and young people going without internet access. “All family life [is] damaged,” he said, adding that Cuba is not a threat but the blockade is. Rodríguez called the situation “collective punishment”, blaming what he described as a US “energy siege”, an “extreme tightening of the blockade” and secondary sanctions.
Tensions between Washington and Havana have intensified under US President Donald Trump, even after officials held talks earlier this year. Those contacts have since stopped. The diplomatic fight will soon move back to the United Nations. Rodríguez said the General Assembly will take up its annual resolution calling for an end to the US embargo on October 27 and 28.
He accused Washington of putting “extraordinary pressure and intimidation” on other UN member states ahead of the vote, but said Cuba still expects “overwhelming support” for ending the embargo.
