“Resignation is Not Part of Our Vocabulary”: Díaz-Canel Refuses to Step Down as Cuba Crumbles

MIAMI — Kristen Welker of NBC News’ Meet the Press asked President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba a simple question Thursday morning in Havana: would he be willing to step down if it meant saving Cuba?

Díaz-Canel’s response came with visible irritation. “Resignation,” he said, was “not part of our vocabulary.”

Before answering, he turned the question back on the journalist. “Do they ask Trump that?” he demanded, and then: “Did the State Department give it to you?” — positing that Welker was regurgitating the U.S. State Department’s narratives.

The exchange — broadcast Thursday as a preview of a longer interview scheduled to air on Sunday — was the first time a Cuban leader had sat down for an American television interview in decades.

It arrived at a moment of extraordinary pressure: the Trump administration is openly seeking his removal, Cuba is enduring power outages of up to 22 hours a day, protests have erupted across the island, and the country’s economy has contracted by nearly a quarter since 2019.

Díaz-Canel did not appear to be a man considering his options. He appeared to be a man refusing to have any.

The Interview and What it Revealed

Díaz-Canel defended what he termed Cuban sovereignty with deliberate formality:

“In Cuba, leaders are not chosen by the U.S. government nor do they have a mandate from it. We have a free and sovereign state. We enjoy self-determination and independence, and we are not subject to U.S. directives.”

He added one conditional — and it was a telling one:

“If the Cuban people believe I am not fit for the position, that I haven’t risen to the challenge, then I shouldn’t hold the office,” he said.

The condition is structurally circular: in a single-party system where no opposition candidates are permitted, no independent polling is conducted, and street protests are suppressed, the mechanism by which “the Cuban people” could deliver such a verdict does not exist.

By 2025, the Cuban Conflict Observatory had recorded 11,268 protests, complaints, and criticisms against the government. Since March 6 alone, at least 156 demonstrations have taken place across various provinces, featuring pot-banging, or cacerolazos, road blockades, trash burning, and attacks on Communist Party offices. On the same day as the interview, April 9, protests were reported in Guantánamo, involving the deployment of black berets, undercover police, and patrol units.

The Cuban people, by most available measures, are sending exactly the message Díaz-Canel claims he is willing to hear, but the system he governs ensures he does not have to.

The Context: What Washington is Actually Proposing

The NBC interview did not happen in a vacuum. It was Díaz-Canel’s direct response to a specific and publicly reported U.S. proposal that has been circulating for weeks.

The New York Times, citing four people familiar with the talks, reported that the Trump administration was seeking to push Díaz-Canel from power, with two years remaining on his term as president and five years left as leader of the Communist Party. Both the Times and USA Today reported that the U.S. proposal would leave untouched the family of former presidents Fidel and Raúl Castro.

The architecture of the proposal mirrors what Washington implemented in Venezuela after Maduro’s capture in January — removing the top figure while leaving the surrounding institutional structure intact. Critics of that approach in the Cuban context argue it would amount to cosmetic change: “Will Díaz-Canel be forced by the Castros to resign? Or shifted to another position? Perhaps. But that is not regime change. That is merely managing the top position,” political analyst Perez told Al Jazeera.

Cuba’s Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio had already delivered Havana’s official position three weeks earlier at a press conference: “The political system of Cuba is not up for negotiation, and of course, neither the president nor the position of any official in Cuba is subject to negotiation with the United States.”

Thursday’s NBC interview was Díaz-Canel delivering the same message himself, directly to an American audience.

The Crisis He is Refusing to Step Away From

The circumstances in which Díaz-Canel made his defiant stand are worth examining without equivocation.

Cuba’s GDP has fallen 23% since 2019. The Economist Intelligence Unit projects an additional decline of 7.2% for 2026. Cuban GDP per capita stood at only $1,082 in 2025, compared to a regional average of $10,212. Cuba and Haiti are the only countries in Latin America experiencing economic contraction.

The island is experiencing its most severe energy crisis in years, with power outages lasting up to 30 hours daily, electric generation deficits exceeding 1,800 megawatts, and chronic shortages of food and medicine. The crisis worsened sharply after January 3, when the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro severed Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba — the lifeline that had sustained the island’s energy system for two decades.

Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it consumes. In late March, a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil arrived — marking the island’s first oil shipment in three months. Russia has promised a second tanker.

Díaz-Canel has accused the Trump administration of waging “economic war” on the island, writing publicly: “The U.S. publicly threatens Cuba — almost daily — with the forceful overthrow of its constitutional order. They plot and announce plans to seize control of the country — of its resources, its properties and even the very economy they seek to suffocate in order to force our surrender.”

Rubio’s Response & Trump’s Threat

Washington’s reaction to the interview was swift and unambiguous. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed the regime’s arguments about energy shortages, claiming there is no naval blockade around Cuba and that the country lacks fuel “because they want it for free, and no one gives away oil or fuel.” He was direct about the bottom line: “They need new leadership because the current leaders don’t know how to solve it.”

President Trump has escalated his rhetoric on Cuba in recent days. As recently as Friday, he hinted that he might attack Cuba following military operations in Venezuela and Iran, saying, “I built this great military. I said, ‘You’ll never have to use it.’ But sometimes you have to use it. And Cuba is next.”

The comment was made at a summit in Miami — the city that has been the political home of the Cuban exile community for sixty years, the community whose aspirations for regime change in Havana have shaped American foreign policy across the same span of time.

What Comes Next

Under Cuba’s 2019 constitution, the president can be replaced if they resign, are removed, die, or are deemed unable to continue in office. In that case, Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa would take over temporarily, and the National Assembly would appoint a new president to serve the rest of the term.

The institutional fallback, if transition follows party channels, would be Roberto Morales Ojeda, secretary of organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and the figure most analysts have identified as the conventional successor. But as analysts note, Cuba faces an extraordinary crisis prompted by an outside force, and the conventional succession path was not designed for this moment.

For now, Díaz-Canel has answered the question Washington has been asking for months. He will not go voluntarily. The extended NBC interview airs on Sunday.

Cuba’s crisis will still be an ongoing dilemma when it does.

Sociedad Media is still following what is happening in Cuba and will continue to monitor U.S.-Cuba negotiations and political developments on the island. For questions, stories, or general inquiries, please reach out to the outlet: info@sociedadmedia.com