Jose Ramon Cabanas / February 8, 2026
In this interview with Almaplustv, José Ramón Cabañas, director of the Center for International Policy Research (CIPI), analyzes the historical cooperation between Cuba and the US, the memoranda signed, Cuban sovereignty, and the island’s role in world peace. From the reopening of embassies to cooperation on migration, drug trafficking, maritime security, and international peace processes, this conversation provides documented information—including US sources—to understand the real relationship between the two countries and Cuba’s place on the global geopolitical stage.
The fact that Cuba and the United States have negotiations at some point on specific or broader issues is not exceptional. It is well documented in US sources that Cuba has cooperated with the United States on various issues. The vast majority of the US population is in favor of the most normal relationship possible with Cuba.
Why does the US insist on holding talks with Cuba at the highest level?
The fact that Cuba and the United States are negotiating at some point on specific or broader issues is not unusual. We must remember, above all, the period from 2015 to 2017, during which a variety of issues were discussed, negotiated, and agreed upon, including the reopening of embassies in both capitals, which are still in place, and the signing of 22 memoranda of understanding on a wide range of issues. In recent days, reference has been made above all to the Memorandum of Understanding on law enforcement and compliance, which provides for cooperation on eight different issues ranging from the fight against terrorism, combating drug trafficking, immigration fraud, cybercrime, and criminal justice. It is important to look at US sources, not just what Cuba says. there are US sources ranging from the State Department to the DEA, a group of institutions that speak positively and say, even in recent years, that it is in the national interest of the United States to cooperate with Cuba on these issues.
We have a Memorandum of Understanding signed for, let’s say, assistance, search and rescue in this area. We have said several times that when there is a vessel, whether it is a private tourist boat or a merchant ship in the Florida Straits that needs assistance due to an emergency, both from the United States and from Cuba, Cuba has provided that assistance, and those on board are not divided between Democrats or Republicans; they are people who require assistance. There have been several cases.
The United States has been pursuing international criminals who have been brought to justice thanks to information provided by Cuba, and we recently published an article based on information provided at the event we held in December on the number of messages sent by Cuban institutions to their US counterparts, especially related to drug trafficking, where there are many Cubans living in the United States involved, Interpol red alerts and green alerts, individuals who pose a risk to the United States, not just to Cuba, but Cuba is the one that has obtained the information, and yet these messages have not received a response from Cuba. So for years there have been specialists, there have been US agencies publishing, if you can search the Internet, what Cuba’s cooperation means to them. If you ask current and retired US Coast Guard officials, they will consistently tell you that the main support they receive in the Caribbean for their work is in Cuba.
If Cuba did not have the position it has in combating illegal migration, which involves hundreds of people of other nationalities trying to use Cuban national territory to reach the United States. If Cuba did not have the policy it has in terms of combating drug trafficking, the impact of these phenomena within the United States would be much greater, and this has been recognized for years. I remember, to give another example, when flights by several US airlines to Cuba resumed around 2016-2017, the US aviation authorities and the airlines themselves, the private companies, said that the country that best implemented the secure traveler program was Cuba in the entire Caribbean.
So, these are facts, realities that cannot be changed by three toxic statements. They are easily verifiable in US sources, and I invite anyone who has doubts to look for these US sources themselves. This is something that has been recorded over the years. And when we have talked and reached agreements and cooperated, it has been in the common interest and for the mutual benefit of both parties. This happened, I insist, especially in the period 2015-2017. It must be said that although Republicans talk a lot about Democrats and what Barack Obama’s administration did or did not do, in reality the main benefits of those agreements did not take place under Barack Obama’s administration, but under Donald Trump’s first administration.
If you look at the figures for travelers between the two countries, which are in the millions, we are talking about Americans coming to Cuba and Cubans visiting the United States, as well as Cuban residents of the United States coming to their country of origin. The highest figures were in 2017, 2018, and early 2019, that is, under Donald Trump. That human exchange does not happen with a country that can be considered an unusual and extraordinary threat. What happened then, and this was reflected in US domestic politics, was that the majority, I would say 90% of those US travelers who had never been to Cuba, who knew about Cuba from school or the US press, returned to the US saying that Cuba is not the threat they had been told about, Cuba is not the enemy they had been described, it is a society with which there are cultural ties of various kinds.
And that impression within the United States was undermining the discourse of the traditional Cuban counterrevolution. And that is why they urgently went to Trump and said this has to be stopped, and that is why we know that the trips, which took a long time to negotiate, a long time to agree on details ranging from political to legal and technical, were cut off, and above all, the cruises were cut off overnight, with the impact on people who had already made their reservations, their expenses, etc. I repeat, it is well documented in US sources that there has been cooperation between Cuba and the United States on various issues, that this cooperation is in the national interest of the United States, and that it has no connection with the latest statements by the US government.
What is the hidden intention behind the insistence that there are talks?
I believe that at the moment they are walking two different paths. One is what is stated in this document at the presidential level, considering Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat, as I said before, which is not the case. And at the same time, they talk about there being a channel of communication.
It is important to know that although the administration has this assessment in that document within the United States and around the world, there is some questioning of that position. Perhaps it is a way of balancing the strong statement made in the presidential document. Perhaps it is to create expectations within Cuba.
Perhaps it is to establish some kind of parallel with the same position they are taking toward other countries. If one followed the news headlines regarding Iran, for example, it would seem that they are going to accept a military strike tomorrow, but at the same time they say they are talking to the Iranian authorities. These are two channels.
I repeat, Cuba’s position has already been established, it has been clearly stated. And it is interesting to see how what is said at the White House level immediately finds a place in certain media outlets that are clearly using it to achieve their effect. And immediately there is a group, not to say a battalion, of sources on social media saying exactly the same thing.
So, one would have to think that these are statements that seek to create an effect within Cuban society, that Cuban society or a sector of Cuban society should question what our own leaders are saying. And it is part of more general purposes in which they use various instruments. There is economic pressure, there is political discourse, there is direct influence on the population, influence on third parties.
These are new types of wars that are no longer like before, where troops have to arrive, disembark, and occupy a territory. Now, influence is also exerted remotely through various means.
Why so much aggression towards Cuba?
To put it briefly, it is a country that has been applying the rules of economic neoliberalism. Of course, it did not apply the same rules that it demanded of the world; internally, other rules were applied, but in any case, there are economic sectors that are big winners and big losers under this formula. The United States has gone through successive periods of economic crisis in recent years. The geography of the city and state has changed dramatically.
Companies, let’s say, in automobile manufacturing, steel production, etc., moved abroad and had an impact. American agriculture has suffered severely. There are states in the United States where the federal budget was paid to farmers not to even try to produce.
The cost of inefficient agricultural production was so high that they were paid not to produce and imported processed foods from different markets. So it is an economy that has suffered these uneven impacts. Some sectors have suffered more than others.
And if you look closely, even the composition of the cabinet is made up of billionaires who have sidelined traditional politicians and Uruguayan women in order to try to steer the country’s destiny themselves. They are not doing this for the benefit of the whole country, nor for the benefit of the entire economy. They represent very specific sectors and very specific interests.
It is a very polarized country where what we knew as the federal Democratic Party and the federal Republican Party are, let’s say, in deconstruction, so to speak. In the specific case of the Republicans, it is a leadership behind a figure who has taken advantage of the moment, even though he has no history of Republican party life. Trump and his family’s contributions were historically in favor of the Democrats, but due to the internal situation of the Republican Party, it was the vehicle he found to come to power, and he has used it in this sense.
With a very clear personal goal: to evade all legal problems and evade taxes. As he has used it for personal gain, it was recently reported that he and his family have already added $1.4 billion to their personal fortune in this first year of the administration alone through various business deals. And the people who accompany him, each seeking a very basic goal.
Coincidentally, the day before the presidential directive considering Cuba an unusual and extraordinary threat was released, a poll was published stating that around 60% of the U.S. population continued to insist that the relationship with Cuba should be a normal one, like that established with any other country. And this has been the case for hundreds more, for hundreds less, but it has been a consistent indicator for many years. The vast majority of the US population is in favor of the most normal relationship possible with Cuba.
During Barack Obama’s administration, the percentages were perhaps higher because they accompanied the executive decision, the presidential decision. At other times of greater toxicity and polarization, they have been lower, but they have always been well over 50%. Even the figures among Cubans living in the United States are very high.
These latest official statements have been accompanied by actions and some statements from, let’s say, local political leaders, in quotation marks, calling for a halt to remittances and calling for no family travel. This is being said by people who have no family in Cuba, who have no interest in doing good, but this clashes head-on with the interests of the vast majority of Cuban residents, whether they participate in political actions or not. They have what is called a family agenda, a logic of communication with their relatives who are in Cuba.
So, with regard to Latin America and Cuba, we are experiencing the expression of what American society is today. When you see ICE forces attacking absolutely any citizen without restraint and without respecting any rules, it is no longer a matter of minorities, it is no longer an issue against Hispanics or Afro-descendants, it is a problem against any citizen who faces that power. It is exactly the same attitude they are taking towards neighboring countries and towards the world, at a time when they cannot find an effective tool to counter the advances of countries such as China, which in just a few years has become a formidable economic competitor, and a country with which they can no longer find a way to compete in terms of productivity, efficiency, and technological innovation. That is the United States we face today.
I believe that Cuba’s alternative has always been consistent with Martí’s thinking. These days, there is talk of eliminating third-party trade with Cuba, especially in oil. Well, let’s go back to the time of Valeriano Weiler’s reconcentration against the Cubans to prevent the war of independence and the extraordinary level of resistance shown by the Cuban people at that time. There are several situations in our history that remind us of such extreme polarization and that our enemy has tried to annihilate the population on a massive scale.
And the Cubans have resisted, they have faced this situation not only internally, but also by connecting with many people around the world who support the Cuban cause and sympathize with the revolution.
How has Cuba contributed to world peace?
The United States has a great contradiction, which is that it declares itself the main enemy of Cuban society and institutions, and at the same time it is the country that hosts the largest solidarity movement with Cuba. In other words, we should not see the United States as something monolithic, because it is not, neither with regard to Cuba nor with regard to any other issue.
Let us remember when they tried to isolate Cuba in the 1960s, and Cuba became the capital of every political movement that proposed an alternative to capitalism. The Tricontinental and OSPAAAL were founded here; all of that happened. Cuba is the only country in the world that has organized two summits, and two summits of non-aligned countries. Cuba is the country where peace has been negotiated for a group of internal conflicts, perhaps the best known being Colombia, but it is not the only case.
There are several dignitaries from various countries who have had political and military problems with their neighbors and who have publicly declared that Havana is the only place in the world where we could meet without third-party influence to achieve peace and discuss our differences. The United States knows this, and in some of these processes, the United States has even expressed an interest in getting closer, in participating in the conversation. Cuba is the country that played a decisive role in finding peace in South West Africa, a process in which the United States was involved, in which the United States negotiated as part of the multilateral agreements, and here peace was signed, no less than in New York City.
So, what we are doing is consistent with what has been our historical position; we believe we are right. Cubans are human beings trained in an extraordinary capacity for survival, for facing problems. Our society, with all the problems it faces, and you see it at any level on the street, solidarity in the face of pain.
Cubans would not want to have to face the situation they face, but they show solidarity at all levels. Many Cubans living abroad also show solidarity with Cuban society. The other day I referred to the example of Hurricane Melissa, and as we have one event after another, we forget some of the most recent ones.
It is difficult to find a place in the world where 700,000 people are evacuated in the face of a natural event like this and there are no deaths. The United States, unfortunately, has just experienced a cold snap, and there were dozens of deaths in a matter of hours. I say this as an example, not that we are a society superior or inferior to the other, I say it as an example of a society that has its strengths, which it has shared with others.
If we talk about the impact of Katrina on New York City, 1,800 people died in the face of a category 5 hurricane. This is not a situation that has ever occurred in Cuba. If we talk about how Cuba and the United States dealt with COVID, Cuba avoided five times more deaths in comparison with their populations than the United States, with far fewer resources, but with an organizational system, not just the five vaccines, that was dedicated to saving society.
So, when we combine this strength with any other country, collectively, we are in a much better position to save, promote, and develop our society.
What is sovereignty for Cuba?
I would say that it is the cornerstone of a multilateral existence, of continuing to live as human beings, of respecting the sovereign independence and freedom of each country. If you asked Cuba today, Cuba does not share many of the visions and political systems that exist in the world. I am not going to give examples, but let’s say that where politics is based on who buys which candidate, obviously that is not how it should work.
And there are other political systems that we do not share. However, there is respect for those authorities, there is respect for those countries, and what it means to continue living as humanity is to negotiate our differences and try to resolve them peacefully. Whenever there is imposition, we have reflected this even in our Constitution, which was voted on by the population in a referendum to approve it.
The country that wants to give Cuba lessons in democracy has never voted on a Constitution. In the United States, that constitutional text that begins with “We the People” was negotiated by 57 individuals and signed by 39. There has been a constitutional amendment group, but the United States as a country has never voted on a Constitution.
We have held several constitutional referendums and have enshrined in our Constitution that we do not negotiate under pressure. When there were more diverse and productive talks and we reached agreements, the first thing that was put on the negotiating table was that the doors are open, not only with the United States. We have historical and cultural ties with the United States.
Possibly one of the most complicated negotiation processes Cuba has ever had has been for peace in Angola, the independence of Namibia, and the end of the war in South Africa. Imagine a Cuban negotiating with a white, racist South African. The political, cultural, and other differences were much greater than what we have experienced with other countries. However, there was common ground and respectful treatment in order to achieve a goal.
We can move forward if we respect our sovereignty, if we consider ourselves equals, and if there is reciprocity.
IMAGE CREDIT: Jose Ramon Cabanas / RESUMEN LATINOAMERICANO
[ SOURCE: Resumen Latinoamericano – Buenos Aires ]
