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Cuba\u2019s Diaz-Canel vows to resist US pressure to resign as Trump escalates threats, tightens oil blockade on the island.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 10 Apr 2026<\/span>10 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel says he will not bow to pressure by the United States to resign.<\/p>\n \u201cStepping down is not part of our vocabulary,\u201d he said in an interview with US broadcaster NBC News on Thursday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The president described communist-ruled Cuba as a \u201cfree sovereign state\u201d with the right to \u201cself-determination,\u201d adding that the island is not \u201csubject to the designs of the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Cuba, the people who are in leadership positions are not elected by the US government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The president since 2018 faces increasing pressure and demands for regime change from President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n Trump has hinted that Cuba could face the same fate as Venezuela and Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI built this great military. I said, \u2018You\u2019ll never have to use it.\u2019 But sometimes you have to use it. And Cuba is next,\u201d the US president said last month.<\/p>\n Cuba\u2019s main oil supply was cut off after Trump ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January. The US has since imposed an oil blockade on the island and threatened tariffs on any country that sells oil to Cuba.<\/p>\n Diaz-Canel condemned the US \u201chostile policy\u201d that has left Cuba reeling from widespread power blackouts, fuel shortages and disruptions to water and food distribution.<\/p>\n He also said the Trump administration has \u201cdeprived the American people from a normal relationship with Cuba.\u201d<\/p>\n Since returning to office last year, Trump has labelled Cuba an \u201cunusual and extraordinary threat\u201d to US national security and threatened a \u201ctakeover\u201d of the island.<\/p>\n Current tensions stretch back to the Cold War, when the US took an adversarial stance against left-wing governments across the Americas.<\/p>\n The Cuban Revolution in the 1950s led to the overthrow of a US-backed military government. By the early 1960s, Washington had imposed a comprehensive trade embargo aimed at weakening revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.<\/p>\n Despite US pressure, Russia has remained a close ally of Cuba.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot betray Cuba. That is out of the question. We cannot leave it on its own,\u201d Russia\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said at a news conference in Havana on Friday.<\/p>\n Last month, a Russia-flagged tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of oil docked in Cuba \u2013 the first to reach the island in three months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cuba\u2019s Diaz-Canel vows to resist US pressure to resign as Trump escalates threats, tightens oil blockade on the island. Published On 10 Apr 202610 Apr 2026 Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel says he will not bow to pressure by the United States to resign. \u201cStepping down is not part of our vocabulary,\u201d he said in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Hostile policy\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018We cannot betray Cuba\u2019<\/h2>\n
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