Cuba's president confirms US talks as island's energy and economic crises intensify

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba has held talks with the U.S. government, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Friday, marking the first time that the Caribbean country has confirmed such speculation as it grapples with a severe energy crisis.

Díaz-Canel said the talks “were aimed at finding solutions through dialogue to the bilateral differences between our two nations. International factors facilitated these exchanges.” He did not elaborate on those factors, or provide any details about the talks.

Asked for comment on Friday, the White House pointed to public comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly alluded to discussions with Cuba and prodded the nation toward a deal, particularly to avoid a similar fate that Venezuela faced.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and senior aides met in the Caribbean at the end of February with the grandson of retired Cuban leader Raul Castro, two U.S. officials said Friday shortly after Díaz-Canel spoke.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said that Rubio had met secretly with Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro on the sidelines of a Caribbean Community leaders meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis.

At the time, Rubio refused to say who, if anyone, he was speaking with in or close to the Cuban government.

Díaz-Canel said that the purpose of the talks with the U.S. was to identify “bilateral problems that require solutions based on their severity and impact” and find solutions to them.

He said that the aim was “to determine the willingness of both parties to take concrete actions for the benefit of the people of both countries. And in addition, to identify areas of cooperation to confront threats and guarantee the security and peace of both nations, as well as in the region.”

The State Department had no immediate comment on Díaz-Canel’s comments.

Díaz-Canel said that no petroleum shipments have arrived on Cuba in the past three months, which he blamed on a U.S. energy blockade. He said the island is running on natural gas, solar power and thermoelectric plants, and that the depletion of fuel oil and diesel forced two power plants to shut down and has limited the generation of power at solar parks.

Cuba’s western region was hit by a major blackout last week, leaving millions of consumers without power.

The president said that Cuba, which produces 40% of its petroleum, has been generating its own power, but that it hasn’t been sufficient to meet demand. The lack of power has affected communications, education and transportation, and the government has had to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of people as a result, he said, adding: “The impact is tremendous.”

“Even with everything we’re putting together, we still need oil,” he said, adding that production output also has dropped. “Without energy, no country can produce at normal levels. All of this has meant making adjustments to employment.”

Last month, Cuba implemented austere fuel-saving measures and has converted more than 115 bakeries to run on firewood or coal.

“Cubans are desperate," said Elvis Hernández, 62. “You can’t live without water or electricity. That’s why we want a consensus to be reached. If there are talks, let them be productive. Let them achieve something good through those conversations.”

Miguel García, 65, welcomed the news of talks with the U.S.

“If all of this leads to agreements and solutions that will improve our lives, then all the better, because the situation is quite difficult right now," he said.

The State Department has weighed potentially drawing down staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Havana as the fuel shortages caused by the American blockade could affect day-to-day diplomatic operations, according to the U.S. officials.

The officials stressed that there is still time to solve the problem and that the embassy and the State Department were looking at potential solutions.

A reduction in staffing at the embassy would likely lead to a U.S. demand for a similar reduction in staffing at the Cuban embassy in Washington, the officials said.

Brian Fonseca, who studies the Americas at Florida International University, said that a reduced presence at the U.S. embassy would be a less than ideal scenario at a moment when Trump is pressing for dramatic change in the Cuban government.

“The diplomatic staff are your eyes and ears on the ground,” Fonseca said. “A downgrading scenario could complicate or challenge U.S. understanding of what’s going on, on the ground.”

Critical oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country and arrested then President Nicolás Maduro.

Since then, the Trump administration has been warning Cuba of a similar fate.

Trump told a gathering of Latin America leaders in Florida last week that Cuba is “very much at the end of the line” and that he was looking forward to “great change” coming soon to the island.

“They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time,” Trump said. “And they used to get the money from Venezuela. They get the oil from Venezuela, but they don’t have any money from Venezuela.”

The most recent blackout was blamed on a broken boiler at a thermoelectric plant that forced the shutdown of Cuba's power grid.

After his speech, Díaz-Canel took questions from a select group of state reporters.

The questions focused mostly on Cuba’s deepening crises, but one reporter asked about the recent shooting of a Florida-flagged boat in Cuban waters in which four of 10 Cubans from the U.S. were killed after the government accused them of opening fire on local troops.

A fifth suspect later died from his injuries, according to the Cuban government.

Díaz-Canel said that FBI officials would visit Cuba soon as both countries continue to share information on the incident.

The five other suspects have been detained and face terrorism charges.

Coto reported from San Jose, Costa Rica; Lee and Madhani from Washington. Ariel Fernández in Havana; Seung Min Kim in Washington; and María Verza in Mexico City, contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump listens while Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

President Donald Trump listens while Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

People wait for public transportation in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

A vendor having breakfast sits by her table holding various products, from cigarettes to sandals, in Havana, Cuba, early Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Mexican ship ARM Huasteco, carrying aid according to the Mexican government, arrives to Havana Bay, Cuba, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

An image of Cuban Revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara stands next to a TV showing Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel speaking, inside a souvenir shop in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

People inside a private convenience store see Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel speaking on TV in Havana, Cuba, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

FILE - Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel attends the 17th annual BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

The U.S. is temporarily easing some sanctions on Russian oil shipments, reflecting global concerns over sharply higher crude prices due to supply shortages stemming from the Iran war.

The move, intended to soothe jittery markets over the disruption of Middle Eastern oil and gas supplies, underlines how the war has boosted Moscow's ability to profit from its energy exports, a pillar of the Kremlin’s budget as it presses its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. sanctions will not apply for 30 days on deliveries of Russian oil that's been loaded on tankers as of Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on X. That would give reluctant purchasers a green light to take the oil without worrying that they will run afoul of U.S. sanctions rules.

The Trump administration earlier had granted a 30-day reprieve to refineries in India.

Bessent said the “narrowly tailored, short-term measure” was part of President Donald Trump's “decisive steps to promote stability in global energy markets” and to “keep prices low."

Allowing the sale of stranded Russian oil would provide no additional financial benefit for the Russian government because the Kremlin already taxed the oil when it was extracted from the ground, Bessent said. Washington has sanctioned Russia's two biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, as part of efforts to end the fighting in Ukraine. Except for the 30-day reprieve for floating oil, those sanctions remain in place.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday the move will help stabilize global energy markets, adding it was impossible to do so "without significant volumes of Russian oil.”

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the action “does not help peace.”

“This easing alone by the United States could provide Russia with about $10 billion for the war,” Zelenskyy said. “It spends the money from energy sales on weapons, and all of this is then used against us.”

The price of international benchmark Brent crude eased after the announcement but soon rose again, breaking through $100 to trade at $103.24 per barrel as of 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) Friday. That is still well above $72.87, where Brent traded on Feb. 27, the eve of the war.

The fighting has choked off most tanker transport through the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, through which 20% of the world's oil supply typically passes. That has dealt a massive energy shock to the global economy and threatened increased inflation around the world.

“In the short term this slightly increases available supply on the global market, which helps contain the current spike in oil prices,” said Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “The impact on prices should therefore be modestly downward, or at least stabilizing.”

Analysts estimate about 125 million barrels of Russian oil are currently being shipped. That equals five or six days' worth of normal shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, or a bit over one day's worth of global consumption of about 101 million barrels per day.

After President Vladimir Putin ordered his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union — once Moscow's biggest customer — stopped taking Russian oil, and many Western customers also shunned it.

Instead, the oil flowed to China and India, where it sold for a discount due to efforts by the U.S., the EU and Kyiv's other allies to impose a price cap on Russian oil that was enforced through shipping and insurance companies.

Over time, Russia was able to dodge the cap by lining up a fleet of used tankers with obscure ownership and insurance based in countries that weren't observing the cap.

Along with the sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, Ukraine's allies penalized more and more of the individual vessels in Russia's “shadow fleet.” Customers in China and India started demanding even bigger discounts to compensate for the risk of running afoul of sanctions, for the hassle of concealing the origin of the oil, or for finding workarounds that skirted banks reluctant to handle payments for sanctioned oil.

In December, Russia's Urals blend traded under $40 per barrel, some $25 below Brent. That slashed the Kremlin's oil revenues to their lowest levels since the invasion. Oil and gas exports typically supply 20% to 30% of the federal budget.

Russian oil has risen along with oil prices generally and now trades at over $80 per barrel — a boost to its financial fortunes if disruptions continue in the Strait of Hormuz and keep prices high while refineries in Asia need to replace supplies no longer available from the Middle East.

Russia’s daily revenue from oil sales during the Iran war has been on average 14% higher than in February, according to the nonprofit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Russia has been earning 510 million euros ($588 million) every day this month from oil and liquefied natural gas exports, according to Isaac Levi of the CREA.

But there's still a big discount to Brent due to sanctions. The latest U.S. move “likely narrows the Urals discount somewhat" by reducing sanctions risk, Tagliapietra said. But since it's limited, the U.S. move "does not fundamentally change the structure of longer-term Russian oil flows or sanctions pressure.”

Former Russian Central Bank official Sergei Aleksashenko said the move “will not be a very significant boost” to the Russian budget because the oil was going to find buyers anyway -- especially given the disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz.

The Trump administration may not have been ready for such a dramatic spike or for a prolonged war, said Aleksashenko, head of economics at the NEST Centre, founded by exiled Russian tycoon and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Now that gasoline prices in the U.S. have risen along with oil, “the president should say something, that 'I'm dealing with the problem,'" he said. That includes the break for India and the release along with other countries of 400 million barrels of strategic oil reserves..

“In my view it's more rhetoric and perception," he said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said leaders of the Group of Seven democracies discussed Russian oil with Trump this week and that “six members expressed a very clear view that this is not the right signal to send.”

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Kostya Manenko in Tallinn, Estonia, and Kwiyeon Ha in London contributed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the Security Council via videoconference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 13, 2026. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left, sits next to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as President Donald Trump speaks at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla.(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

FILE - A man walks along the shore as oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, file)