Cuba accuses US Embassy of ‘forging diplomatic rupture’ between the two countries

Cuba on Monday accused the U.S. Embassy in Havana, as well as its chief of mission Mike Hammer, of trying to provoke a bilateral crisis leading to the "rupture" of diplomatic relations between the two countries, moderately reestablished in 2015.

The official portal Cubadebate described the diplomatic headquarters as a "historic instrument of subversion" that is trying to detonate "a bilateral crisis."

These statements occur in the midst of a terrible economic, political and social crisis that the island is going through, and which keeps its population on the verge of collapse. Electricity outages of more than 20 hours, food and medicine shortages, and a growing repression that keeps more than 1,000 political prisoners in the regime's cells, are some of the realities that the Caribbean country is experiencing.

"With ordinary Cubans"

Since his arrival in Cuba in November 2024, Hammer has visited dissidents, human rights defenders, mothers of political prisoners and independent journalists in their homes.

Likewise, he has met with entrepreneurs and religious leaders, and invites all Cubans who wish to dialogue with him to write to him by e-mail, a practice he considers "very important to understand a country and its people," the diplomat said in fluent Spanish in one of the videos released by the embassy.

Among the opponents he has listened to are José Daniel Ferrer; the leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler; Guillermo Fariñas, recipient of the European Parliament's 2010 Sakharov Prize; and Martha Beatriz Roque, distinguished in 2024 with the International Women of Courage Award, granted by the United States.

The U.S. embassy posted on X photos of the meetings that, according to the regime in Havana, violate the Vienna Convention and the 2015 agreement on the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, something the business manager denies.

Cubadebate's justification

"The 'Hammer' operation, which we have witnessed in recent weeks, points to a new episode of premeditated rarefaction through the crudest and most eloquent graft, which does not hide the authority and support of Secretary of State Marco Rubio," Cubadebate added.

In its statement, the portal managed by the dictatorship defined the U.S. official "as an uncontrolled diplomat, a courier, a deliverer of promises and money in exchange for servility and confrontation with the government."

Cubadebate also criticized his statements during a press conference held in Miami, where one of the strongest centers of the Cuban emigrant and anti-Castro community is located.

Washington's position with Havana

Since he arrived in January at the White House, Donald Trump, who during his first term (2017-2021) reinforced the embargo that Washington has applied to Cuba since 1962, like no other U.S. president, has increased his pressure on the communist island.

In January, Trump also reversed the decision of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, and this month, Washington returned the island to another blacklist, composed of countries that do not fully cooperate in its fight against terrorism.