In an exclusive interview with Cuba’s official state newspaper Granma published on April 20, 2026, a senior Cuban foreign ministry official has confirmed that recent high-level diplomatic meetings between Cuban and U.S. delegations took place on Cuban soil, while pushing back against inaccurate foreign media reporting about the nature of the talks.
Alejandro García del Toro, deputy director for U.S. Affairs at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex), spoke publicly to Granma to address growing speculation in international press coverage surrounding the closed-door bilateral discussions. García del Toro acknowledged that the negotiations are a sensitive matter that Cuban authorities have intentionally handled with deliberate discretion, a longstanding approach for diplomatic engagement with the United States that has been consistent across years of rocky bilateral relations.
Contrary to unconfirmed claims circulating in some foreign outlets, García del Toro officially confirmed that the meeting between the two delegations occurred recently in Cuba. The U.S. delegation included ranking officials at the level of undersecretary of State, while Cuba’s side was represented by officials at the vice-minister level from the foreign ministry.
García del Toro explicitly refuted a narrative that had been circulated by some U.S. media outlets, which claimed that one side had imposed rigid timelines for progress or used coercive language during the talks. He clarified that the entire exchange between the two delegations was conducted on the basis of mutual respect and professional diplomatic protocol, rejecting any characterization of the discussions as confrontational or one-sided.
A core priority for the Cuban delegation during the talks, García del Toro emphasized, was pushing for the elimination of the U.S.-imposed energy blockade on Cuba. He described the long-running economic coercion measure as an unjustified punishment that inflicts widespread harm on the entire Cuban civilian population. Beyond its impact on Cuba, García del Toro framed the blockade as a form of global blackmail against sovereign nations, noting that all independent states hold the inherent right to export fuel to Cuba in line with established principles of free international trade.