Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz Canel has announced on national television that the regime has begun negotiations with the United States. This comes after Cuban officials announced the release of 51 prisoners. Diaz-Canel says "Cuban leaders recently held talks with representatives of the U.S. government to try to find, through dialogue, the possible solution to the bilateral differences that exist between both nations."
Diaz-Canel addressed the communist island's economic crisis, specifically mentioning the fact that the island is in dire straits, with the nation effectively running out of oil due to a U.S.-led blockade that has halted imports from Venezuela and Mexico since about a month ago. He says "adjustments" are being made, and is current talks with the U.S., "not the first time," he says, that this happens.
In the island broadcast Friday morning, Diaz Canel said in summary " this deals with a sensitive in nature matter- that we are we handling with the utmost care to avoid a confrontation between both nations." He did not, however, go into any details about the prisoners being released.
Dr. Andy Gomez, professor of Cuban studies at the University of Miami-says the prisoner release is a good faith effort by Diaz-Canel to show the US he's willing to do something. In January 2025, Cuba released prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer as part of a government decision to gradually free more than 500 prisoners following talks with the Vatican.
Ferrer left Cuba in October and is now in Miami.