Relations with Washington Remain Cool

Ambassador Lissette Perez also spoke about the Cuba-U.S. relations in light of a new leader. She said that while Cuba remains open to relations with the U.S., they will not allow a capitalist model change. Cuba and U.S.A. began mending fences under the Barrack Obama Administration, but President Trump has reversed policy changes and just last month, he announced he will reduce staff by sixty percent at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. This announcement came after a health incident where embassy staff got sick. Despite Cuba denying any role in the unexplained sickness and cooperating with the F.B.I., things have remained thorny between the two countries.  Here’s what Ambassador Perez had to say on the outlook of relations between the two countries under its new leader.

Lissette Perez

Lissette Perez, Ambassador of Cuba to Belize

“Cuba has already been expressing that we are in the position to dialogue. We want to live with the United States, with our neighbors as civilized neighbors. They are the ones that have to remove the blockade, remove the pressures against Cuba, because, we, with our independence policy, have decided what we want for our future. They have to be respectful with our model; the model that we have decided. As you mentioned, we did some improvements in the previous administration and it means that we can do a lot in terms of cooperation and in a civilized neighborhood with them. We can do a lot in terms of preventing crime in the region; in the battle against drugs; in the defense of the environment and others.  We can do that. And we are in the position to do that but we are not in the position to permit any intervention in Cuba in our internal decisions. We will continue to develop our own autonomous model of sovereignty, autonomous model of development. We strongly believe the eleven million people in Cuba have the right to be better, not just a group of persons. This is a model that tries to distribute what we have for the humble. We will continue dreaming to perfect this model but we will not change that because we do not believe in the kind of model that tries to impose on us when you have exclusion, you have poor, you have persons on the street. We do not believe in that model.”