EXCLUSIVE: Cuba’s Foreign Minister denies ‘foreign intelligence bases’ claims

[0:00] Cuba's in a lot of trouble because unfortunately for them it's run by a bunch of incompetent [0:05] communists and being communist is bad. Being an incompetent communist is like the worst. [0:09] So we'll be talking to them. We'll be working on it. You know, we want something good for the [0:13] Cuban people and hopefully there'll be a good outcome there for them. There needs to be. It's [0:17] 90 miles from our shores and having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to [0:23] the national security of the United States. That was Secretary of State Mark Aruba yesterday [0:29] during a cabinet meeting as he called the growing possibility of regime collapse in Cuba [0:34] a national security threat. A new report this morning by Axios said the administration [0:39] was preparing for the country's government to fall as early as this summer. MSNOW anchor Antonia [0:46] Hilton sat down with Cuba's foreign minister to discuss the country's economic crisis. [0:52] She joins us now. Antonia, thank you for being here. Certainly there's been bleaker and bleaker [0:57] assessments coming from the White House about the situation in Cuba, a long held belief that Cuba [1:03] would be, quote, be next, whatever that means once this Iran war is wrapped up. So tell us a little [1:09] bit about about what the foreign minister told you in terms of how things are there on the island. [1:15] Well, on the island right now, there's a humanitarian crisis and catastrophe. And not only did the Cuban [1:23] foreign minister describe that, I have family members who are living there and text me and my loved [1:27] ones on an almost daily basis about what they describe as a sort of game of survival. [1:32] People are trying every day to find food, medical supplies. They're dealing with massive inflation. [1:39] Think about trying to get gas at something like 30 or $40 a gallon. That would be the sort of [1:44] translated equivalent. And then the sort of psychological pressure and anxiety that comes [1:50] with not even knowing when you're next going to have power and light. Think about all the things you [1:54] can't do when you don't have electricity. You can't keep medications that need to be refrigerated [1:59] cool. You can't keep the food that you just struggled so hard to find fresh. And so people [2:05] are under immense pressure to the point where even Cubans who are not supportive of Marco Rubio and the [2:11] United States posture toward the country, they at this point tell me they just want them to do [2:16] whatever it is they're going to do because they're getting exhausted at this point. And the foreign [2:20] minister described much of the same. He really focused on what's happening at Cuba's hospitals, [2:26] the fact that there are tens of thousands of people waiting for surgeries, including about 12,000 [2:31] children. And so he really set the stage at the beginning of the interview, just of the level of [2:35] crisis and pressure people are under as these bilateral talks. He described them as frankly [2:41] struggling right now. They're not making a ton of progress, Jonathan. [2:43] So let's take a look at part of your conversation with the Cuban foreign minister. [2:47] The blockade has absolutely played a devastating role, not just in the recent past, but over the [2:56] decades. But there is the reality, too, that the United States is asking Cuba to make political [3:01] and democratic reforms, to release political prisoners, to stop, they say, allowing foreign enemies like [3:10] Iran, Russia, China to have intelligence bases on the island. Are any of those things on the table? [3:17] Are the Cubans willing to move on any of those issues? [3:20] In Cuba, there are no foreign military bases, nor there is any foreign personnel attached there, [3:27] with the only exception, all the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo. [3:32] You're saying you don't have foreign intelligence operations on the island? [3:35] I can tell you that I catch globally assert that in Cuba, there are no foreign military bases or [3:43] foreign personnel, and no hostile action has been launched from Cuba. [3:49] So, Antonia, is there a fear in Cuba that this might go beyond economic pressure and that President [3:56] Trump may authorize some sort of military operation? [3:59] Absolutely. I would say fear and anticipation in some corners. There are Cubans on the island [4:04] who actually want Trump to take action at this point. They describe their lives as being completely [4:09] unbearable. But the reality is that it might not be as easy as, you know, you hear Trump sometimes [4:15] make comments to the effect of sort of celebrating what happened in Venezuela, this idea that he may be [4:20] able to recreate a very successful sort of straightforward operation like that one. Cuba is different than [4:27] Venezuela. They punch above their weight in terms of their military and intelligence operations. [4:32] And so what the Cuban foreign minister has warned me, the president of Cuba has also said this in [4:36] recent days, is that if the United States does this, there will be a bloodbath. That is the word they [4:41] have been using, bloodbath. And he described not only will Cubans lose their lives, but he said many [4:46] young Americans sent to the island to do that will lose their lives. They say Cuba is not going to launch [4:52] any kind of attack. They deny the recent Axios report that, you know, they've been planning some [4:56] sort of drone attack. They describe that as basically a pretext from this administration. [5:01] But they are warning that if the U.S. strikes first, they are preparing for that in the background. [5:07] When you talk about this negotiation, what is the action? What does America want from Cuba? [5:13] I mean, that's what I don't understand. Like, what is the goal here? Do they want regime change? [5:18] I mean, what are they asking for? And is there actual negotiation really happening? [5:22] Well, there are definitely conversations happening, but how much progress is being made? It doesn't [5:28] seem like a ton, frankly, Molly. And that's because the question that you asked there, I mean, people [5:33] have dedicated their entire lives to try to answer that question of like, what does the United States [5:37] want to do to Cuba? I think if you asked Cuban Americans living in, say, Miami, many of them would [5:42] say regime change or nothing. There has to be complete political and economic transformation on the [5:48] island. But the sense behind the scenes is that what the Trump administration is most interested [5:52] in is economic transformation. They would like to be able to do business deals. They would like to [5:56] change the economic reality. But they might do something sort of akin to what we saw happen in [6:01] Venezuela, where they don't, they're not so worried about when the next elections are, right? Is there [6:05] going to be a Delcy Rodriguez type figure? That might not be politically palatable to Cuban [6:10] Americans, many of whom have supported Secretary Marco Rubio. And there may be some tension there when the [6:16] time comes if they're not able to pull off this complete project that for decades, a portion of [6:21] a very politically active portion of the Cuban American community has been angling for. All right. [6:25] MSNOW reporter and co-anchor of The Weekend Primetime, Antonia Hilton. Thank you, Antonia. We'll be looking [6:31] for your reporting throughout the day here on MSNOW.