Cuba's Ambassador to Mexico Warns of U.S. Military Threat Amid Crisis

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: The U.S. is threatening military action against Cuba at the same time that high-level negotiations are happening in Havana. It's against that backdrop that NPR's Eyder Peralta interviewed Cuba's ambassador to Mexico, whose dealings with the U.S. go back decades.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: I meet Ambassador Johana Tablada de la Torre at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. At the moment, her country is under siege. They have dayslong blackouts. Food, medicine, fuel - everything is scarce. The ambassador lays the blame for all of that suffering on the United States. Since President Trump took office, he declared Cuba a national security threat, in part because of their ties to U.S. adversaries. Trump tightened sanctions, and since the beginning of the year, he put in place a de facto oil blockade.

JOHANA TABLADA DE LA TORRE: So when United States says that what they want is Cuba to open their economy, they are not telling the truth. When the United States says that they care about human rights in Cuba, they are lying blatantly - blatantly, because the United States is the only responsible for the deterioration of the situation, for the sad situation that we're living in hospitals. We built one of the best system of care of the world. So when we have to see the neonatologists using their hands to keep a baby alive because there's no electricity, nobody will say because socialism doesn't work.

PERALTA: I tell her when I was in Cuba, I did hear Cubans blame her government. They're angry, and they want a change. And I feel like every time that I hear a Cuban official talk and they blame the United States for everything, I never hear any self-reflection. And it's been 70 years.

TABLADA DE LA TORRE: Well, maybe you are not hearing enough our discussions in Cuba, domestic discussion. Every time I see discussions of the Council of Minister of Cuba, I see the president talking about our own insufficience, which is not fair, is - in a moment of maximum pressure, to blame the victim. If we are a family and a big guy is outdoor closing our oxygen, cutting off the water pumpers, cutting off the electricity, I don't think this is the moment to say, could you do it better?

PERALTA: This month, the State Department sent a team to Havana for high-level talks. Ambassador Tablada de la Torre is one of the Cuban government's most seasoned U.S. negotiators. She says when they talk in good faith, good things happen.

TABLADA DE LA TORRE: At the same time, we also draw a line. We are not ready to put on a table of negotiation who's the president of Cuba, which economic system Cuba will have. Those kind of things are decisions that rightfully belong to the Cuban people to take.

PERALTA: But the Trump administration has said they want fundamental changes to the Cuban political and economic system. I tell her if those things are off the table, a diplomatic deal seems unlikely. And specially after Iran, after what happened in Venezuela, a military intervention - an American military intervention seems very much on the table. It doesn't seem...

TABLADA DE LA TORRE: Probably.

PERALTA: ...Far-fetched.

TABLADA DE LA TORRE: I know.

PERALTA: Is Cuba ready?

TABLADA DE LA TORRE: If they take the responsible, inhuman, unjustified decision to attack on a small nation that has not a single decision that make any harm to any Americans or Cuban Americans, we are ready. We are ready for them.

PERALTA: The Cuban ambassador says she hopes that it doesn't come to that. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Mexico City.