Description: Cuba’s foreign ministry’s under director of Cuba – US affairs, Alejandro Garcia, confirmed that Cuban officials met with representatives from the US State Department in Havana, including meetings with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of the former president Raul Castro. The negotiations focused on the US oil blockade of the island country following the capture of the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro earlier this year. The meeting also arrives as Cuban president Miguel Diaz Canel exchanged threats with US president Trump who threatened to invade the island if Cuba failed to agree to US conditions to lift the oil blockade. The island has been grappled by months of blackouts and ailing economic conditions following the oil blockade imposed by the US.
Impact: Cuba’s energy suffocation is likely another assertive US foreign policy measure to exert maximum pressure and economic coercion and draw the communist country within its orbit of influence, force it to distance itself from ties with Russia and China. There were no indications of significant progress in the first direct contact in decades which likely indicates that further meetings would be scheduled. The US is currently preoccupied with the crisis in Iran which positions Cuba in a precarious situation as it struggles with mounting energy and economic crisis. Direct military intervention is currently an unlikely prospect, although, depending on future negotiations and progress within the diplomatic framework, the US is also unlikely to lift the oil blockade, effectively protracting the crisis on the island.