Weekly Report - 19 March 2026 (WR-26-11)

After weeks of rumours, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel has acknowledged that talks are taking place with the US administration led by President Donald Trump which, following its January military incursion in Venezuela and removal of former president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026), has been applying unprecedented pressure to the island via an oil blockade, among other things. With the impact of Washington’s squeeze on Cuba most recently illustrated in a nationwide outage on 16 March, a New York Times (NYT) report citing anonymous US officials has shed more light on the likely objectives of Trump, who maintains Cuba is next on his agenda after Iran, where the US and Israel began a war on 28 February.