Cuban Americans in Florida trust Rubio as a negotiator.
The Trump administration is in active talks with Cuba, but few details are known.
- Cuba’s severe fuel crisis has made it difficult for the Catholic Church to provide humanitarian aid.
- The Trump administration has tightened sanctions and restricted oil exports to Cuba, worsening Cuba’s economic crisis.
- Despite high-level talks between U.S. and Cuban officials, tensions remain high and the path forward is unclear.
The worsening fuel crisis in Cuba is currently severely hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid distributed through the Catholic Church, a senior American church official said in an interview.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who has helped coordinate aid shipments from South Florida to Cuba for 30 years, told USA TODAY that his diocese can only send “small potatoes” to Cuba. It is proving increasingly difficult to find ways to distribute supplies sent to the island amid severe fuel shortages.
Wenski said that last week his community was able to transport a container of chicken to Caritas Cuba, an aid group affiliated with the Catholic Church, but when it arrived in the area, “Caritas was using what you could almost call a wheelbarrow to distribute the chicken. They sent me pictures.”
He said Cubans were telling him the island was reaching “zero hour” of humanitarian collapse.
The Trump administration has tightened long-standing sanctions and cut oil exports to Cuba as part of a broader campaign to force sweeping political changes on the communist-ruled island. Already in deep economic crisis, the near-total lockdown is pushing the country towards collapse. The White House also threatened to impose tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil, including Venezuela and Mexico, and added Cuba to the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
President Trump’s renewed interest in Cuba has at times provoked pushback from the Vatican, with Pope Leo XIV calling on all parties to engage in “honest and effective dialogue.”
The pope, who has emerged as the most prominent global critic of President Trump’s actions on the world stage, said in February that dialogue was a way to avoid “violence and any actions that could increase the suffering of our beloved Cuban people,” according to Vatican News.
The Free Press reported on April 6 that Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who served as the Holy See’s ambassador to the United States until March, was “summoned” by the White House over Pope Leo’s speech in January. Citing an anonymous Vatican official, the report characterized parts of the meeting as “a scathing lecture warning that the United States has the military power to do whatever it wants and that the Church would be better off on its side.”
USA TODAY confirms that the meeting took place, but both the Pentagon and the Vatican deny the version of events described in the report.
Meanwhile, the United States and Cuba acknowledge they are in the early stages of finding a way out of the crisis, but it is not clear how much either side is willing to compromise.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in an interview with NBC News that he has no intention of resigning even under pressure from the United States. He also said Havana had asked the Trump administration to begin formal talks without seeking political concessions.
Tensions between Washington and Havana have increased in recent weeks, even as the Trump administration’s attention has shifted to the Iran war. President Trump hinted that he would soon have the “honor” of “occupying Cuba in some way,” adding: “I think I can do whatever I want with Cuba, whether it’s liberating it or taking it.”
At the same time, U.S. and Cuban officials have been quietly pursuing high-level talks centered on a potential economic agreement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who leads the US side, met with the grandson of former Cuban leader Raul Castro in February. Diaz-Canel publicly acknowledged on March 13 that discussions were ongoing.
Few details about the talks have been released.
Diaz-Canel said in an interview with NBC News that the government remains bound by the will of the Cuban people. “The concept of revolutionaries giving up and retreating is not part of our vocabulary,” he said.
Catholic Church: Intermediary between the United States and Cuba
The Catholic Church has long acted as a mediator between the two countries, and played a central role in the 2015 thaw that restored diplomatic relations after more than 50 years of hostility. Pope Francis helped broker this opening (which President Trump later began to reverse during his first term) and laid the groundwork for President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba in March 2016.
On February 20, senior US diplomats met with the Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, in Rome to discuss the role of the church, according to the Washington Post. That same day, U.S. officials also met with Latin American ambassadors to consider how the Church can support economic opportunity and greater freedom for Cubans.
The Vatican also helped release 51 prisoners from Cuban prisons in March, including 27 political detainees, according to the advocacy group Prisoners Defenders.
Weeks later, Cuban authorities announced the release of more than 2,000 additional prisoners, but none were classified as political prisoners, said the group’s president, Javier Lalonde.
Despite the speculation, Lalonde said the release was unrelated to negotiations between the United States and Cuba. He added that Trump administration officials contacted him and other NGOs about political prisoners in early 2025, but made clear they were not involved in any negotiations to secure their release.
“They knew nothing about negotiating with Cuba to free anyone or anything,” he said.
Meanwhile, the number of political prisoners arrested is rapidly increasing. Lalonde said authorities detained an average of about 15 people a month last year, but in February they detained 28 people and in March they detained more than 45 people.
He said that as the fuel crisis deepens, Cuban officials fear a repeat of the protests of July 2021, when widespread unrest caused by economic hardship sparked violent clashes and led to more than 8,000 arrests.
In recent months, people have been showing up at soup kitchens with containers to deliver home-cooked meals to their families, rather than eating at distribution lines, said Sisi Rodríguez, executive director of Friends of Caritas Cubana, a U.S.-based nonprofit that raises funds.
The crisis on the island began to deepen last year, as Cuba struggled to recover from Hurricane Melissa.
In October, a Category 3 storm battered eastern Cuba with heavy rain, flooding, and damaging winds. Rodriguez said Caritas Cuba sent volunteers to the area and used horse-drawn carriages and ox-drawn carts to distribute aid throughout the storm-hit areas.
“The situation in Cuba is unsustainable,” said Lalonde of Prisoners Defenders.
Democrats invade Cuba
Two Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who visited the island last week echoed that assessment.
Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan Jackson said they traveled to Cuba to witness first-hand the effects of the fuel embargo, which they described as an “unlawful blockade of energy supplies.”
“This is the most licensed place on earth right now, just 90 miles from the coast,” Jackson told reporters in Havana. “Let’s cut down on the rhetoric. People are suffering for no good reason.”
Lawmakers said the five-day visit, which ended on April 5, included meetings with Díaz-Canel, Cuban parliamentarians and foreign ministry officials.
“The dialogue has begun. The dialogue has begun,” Jayapal said. “We are not yet at a full negotiation, but there is clearly an interest in reaching a negotiation and addressing what needs to change.”
“Let’s sit down and talk.”
Wensky, 75, who lives in Miami, said he had planned to go to Cuba last month to meet with Cuban bishops from around the island, but had to postpone his trip due to a last-minute illness. His visa is still valid for several weeks.
“I’m trying to get through it over the next few days,” he said.
But before he leaves, he said he wants to talk to the Cuban bishops to see if they can pick him up at the airport, feed him and send him back to the airport so he can fly home.
In February, Cuba’s bishops decided to cancel the ceremony. at the threshold Visits – Bishops’ visits to Rome usually take place every five years, allowing them to interact with the Pope and other Vatican members – due to the deteriorating situation on the island.
Bishop Arturo González Amador, head of Cuba’s Santa Clara diocese, said in an interview with Clax magazine that he and other bishops were preparing to leave for the airport in mid-February to attend the Conference of Rome when they were informed that the plane might not have enough fuel to leave the island.
They were determined to continue to stand by the Cuban people in their time of need, he said.
González praised the efforts of the United States and the Catholic Church to send aid to victims after Hurricane Melissa, and said the time has come for both the United States and Cuba to put aside past grievances and strengthen ties.
“We must do our part. Now is the time for dialogue,” he told Crax. “We’ve had enough of being picky about each other. We’ve had enough of being offensive. Let’s sit down and talk.”
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