Press Briefing with Jeremy P. Lewin, Acting Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom to announce additional humanitarian[...]

MR LEWIN:(In progress) so a few weeks ago, Ambassador Hammer and I were in Miami to announce - just to see off actually the first shipment of $3 million in support that was initially announced in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, but also responding to the broader humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which has been going on for many years, of course, due to the regime's failure to create basic opportunity and create a functioning economy on the island.

And so that assistance delivered, and we were privileged to have the head of Catholic Relief Services with us there at that event in Miami, and we did a few ceremonial box-ups of a few of the boxes and sort of showed the press corps, of course, exactly what we were sending. And since then our teams have been hard at work, and with our local partner Caritas on the ground and Catholic Relief Services, we've done, I think, three air shipments and a sea shipment as well, and delivered on the ground thousands and thousands of boxes of hygiene kits, food, all the stuff that we showed you.

And so we've now actually delivered the majority of that assistance and are pleased to be able to announce an additional $6 million in direct assistance that will be delivered through the same channel. And like the last batch of assistance, of course, we're delivering prepackaged commodities in order to make it much more difficult for the regime to interfere or divert - interfere with or divert this assistance. Of course that's critical. As we said at the time, we've been pleased to see that the regime has not made attempts to interfere with this assistance. We have been watching - Ambassador Hammer and his team have been out in the field speaking with everyday Cubans. There are some really, truly moving videos of him and our embassy team delivering assistance directly to the people, talking to them, understanding the challenges that they've been facing, both in the wake of the hurricane and due to the broader humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

So we have been working hard with Catholic Relief Services and Caritas, and we're grateful for their continued partnership. Obviously the church is taking a tremendous burden here and taking tremendous risk. They're the ones that have to deal with the regime every day. They're the ones that, in the wake of the hurricane, said really they welcomed U.S. assistance and they're the ones on the ground that have been making sure that the regime doesn't interfere with it, that it goes to the people in need. And so Ambassador Hammer has met with so many of the bishops and the local parish members, and it's been a really strong effort by the church, which of course forms the basis of so many communities in Cuba.

So with this additional assistance, we're going to be delivering tens of thousands more in-kind commodity distribution - same channel: State Department-chartered aircraft and boats to deliver assistance. And so we'll be working with Catholic Relief Services and with Caritas to deliver that assistance on the ground.

And again, Secretary Rubio said our support for the Cuban people is unwavering. We have always said the regime has failed to create any system of government, any functioning economy, and the results have been plain for everyone to see for many years. And so it's really our privilege to be able to deliver this. To my knowledge, this is the largest amount of direct assistance the United States has ever delivered to Cuba, at least in recent memory. I know in the past, in 2022, the Biden administration did $2 million for Hurricane Ian, so now we are far surpassing that.

And one last statement: I'd like to do a lot more. I think the Secretary and the administration would like to do a lot more. The challenge, of course, as it always has been, is the regime, right? They don't want to admit how bad the conditions have gotten in Cuba, and they want - they don't want to let us sort of come in and do that lifesaving support. But if the Cuban regime is - comes to their senses and is willing to let us do more support, we would like to be announcing a lot more than that. But today we are really privileged to be able to announce an additional $6 million. And again, we will continue to watch. It was horrible to see the regime try to intimidate Ambassador Hammer when he was out in the field. I think that we probably put out statements about that. That's obviously unacceptable - a violation of diplomatic norms, and it has to stop. But he and his team courageously would be out there in the field, watching, making sure that the regime does not take the assistance, divert it, try to politicize it. Because again, our aim here really is just to help the people of Cuba who continue to struggle every day with basic necessities.

And with that, I welcome any questions.

MODERATOR:Thank you so much. We will now be taking questions from journalists. Today's briefing is on the record, attributable to Jeremy P. Lewin, Senior Official for the Bureau of Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom.

QUESTION:This is Abigail Williams with NBC News. Is there any direct engagement or conversation between the U.S. and the Cuban Government in the facilitating of this delivery of humanitarian assistance? And do you see an increased need for humanitarian assistance in Cuba in recent weeks, and if so, do you see this - do you see this resulting from any U.S. actions?

MR LEWIN:So on the question of direct engagement, no, there's not been direct engagement; the church and Caritas and Catholic Relief Services have been handling that. Of course, we continue to support them in all of that work. But again, our object here is not to politicize this unnecessarily. So we have said publicly and continue to say the regime must just simply let these organizations do their work unhindered. We understand, of course, that they have a dialogue with the relevant authorities and continue to have a dialogue with the relevant authorities. We have every expectation, from our conversations with the partners, that the regime will allow this additional assistance to be distributed in the same manner without interference.

On the question about U.S. actions - no. I mean, the situation in Cuba has been getting much worse over the last few years. I think the hurricane, of course, is very challenging to recover from. But if you look at the decline in economic productivity, people fleeing the island - almost 10 percent, more than - more than 10 percent of the island's population leaving since COVID - a basic breakdown in the energy infrastructure, basic breakdown in the provision of goods and services - the government-run stores are completely bereft of goods, right? There's nothing on the shelves. Exports have declined. Sugar production has declined. Tobacco production has declined. And those things have been going on for a long time.

Of course, one of the challenges remains sort of the lingering impacts of the hurricane. So obviously I went to Jamaica and we did a really robust response to Hurricane Melissa across the region. So in Jamaica we airlifted nearly a million pounds of assistance with the help of - from our DOW air assets and other U.S. Government personnel. We deployed search and rescue teams and across the region, mostly to Jamica but also Haiti, Dominican Republic, other places; deployed nearly $40 million worth of assistance. And in all of those places, I mean, after a hurricane like Melissa, the challenges remain. People have lost their shelter. They have challenges getting clean water because the water infrastructure has been destroyed by the hurricane, et cetera. And those challenges remain in Cuba. So I think in the sense of the hurricane remaining a challenge, absolutely. But the humanitarian - the manmade humanitarian crisis, which - and I think it's important to note that most of the humanitarian crisis in Cuba is in fact manmade - has been getting worse for many years.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks for doing this. Can you just provide - so what's the total since the hurricane, this - after this $6 million? Is that - sorry.

MR LEWIN:To Cuba?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR LEWIN: Nine million to Cuba.

QUESTION:Okay. Nine million since the hurricane?

MR LEWIN: Yes.

QUESTION: Okay. Now, secondly, related to the second part of Abby's question. The other day the embassy in Havana put out this really stark alert for American citizens, talking about lack of fuel, lack of energy, stockpile - if you're an American in Cuba, advising them to stockpile water and whatever, batteries, and also make sure you're - all sorts of stuff. I haven't seen that kind of warning in a while for Cuba, and it seems to flow not just as a result of the hurricane but also the end of Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba, however good or bad you think that might be; the pressure on Mexico to stop their oil shipments; and then a threat from the President to impose tariffs on any country that sends oil or sells oil to Cuba.

So how - my question is one, how is this - how is this not the responsibility or the, quote/unquote, fault - the current disaster situation - of the United States involving with the fuel? And secondly, you mentioned Ambassador Hammer and his team going around - I saw some photos of them way down in the south, southeast of the island the other day. How exactly are they getting there? Does the embassy have a - just an unlimited supply of fuel to either drive or fly to these remote areas? Thank you.

MR LEWIN: You'd have to ask the embassy specifically about Ambassador Hammer's transportation. Obviously, the United States takes very seriously the responsibility to make sure that all of our missions are adequately supplied, including with transportation resources. Cuba is a very dangerous place. I mean, talk about Havana syndrome and a lot of the other things that have gone on there. So obviously we have to make sure that all of our chiefs of mission and all of the folks at our posts have supplies, including sort of basic supplies to make sure that they're safe in their location.

With respect to the broader question, there's this narrative that the Venezuelan oil, which really - I mean, again, going back to the Venezuelan oil, that was mostly provided without compensation and it was provided - compensation in kind for what essentially was colonial control by Cuba of Venezuela. Again, when we found Maduro, who was guarding him? It was Cubans, right? And the security apparatus - the state security apparatus, which continues to consume all of the oil, by the way, in Cuba. I mean, all of it's being hoarded by the government-run monopoly. All of it's being hoarded by the security service.

But the security service in Cuba was essentially providing protection for this illegitimate cartel government in Venezuela and receiving free oil for them, tens of thousands of barrels a day, right? And what were they doing with that oil? It was not helping the Cuban people. Of the 70,000 - for the year proceeding the operation to capture Maduro, the Venezuelans were sending about 70,000 barrels of oil to Cuba, and of that total, 40,000 barrels a day was shipped to Asia for re-export, just taking cash that then the government was hoarding. There have been leaked financial documents about how GAESA has tens of billions of dollars of assets potentially. I mean, the government has oil reserves. So a lot of the oil was just profit-making for the government.

And when you look at the power generation problem, the blackouts, that's been going on for years. The blackouts have been going on for years, and they've been going on for years not just because of supplies of refined fuel or crude or anything like that, but because the transport - the transmission infrastructure is from the '40s. The generation - infrastructure is incredibly old. And the government, because it's failed to create an economy that produces anything, has been unable to maintain it. I mean, you - again, you look at the drop in their exports, their ability - I mean, leaving the embargo and everything else aside, their exports of sugar, their production of sugar, their production of tobacco, coffee, trade goods, all - nickel, cobalt, all of their ores - down tremendously since 2013 and then since 2019, and that was during Biden administration easing, Obama administration easing. So the situation in Cuba - the blackouts have been going on for years and years and years. So this idea that a short-term change in some amount of oil shipments is what's responsible for the humanitarian situation in Cuba - it's simply not true.

Instead, what we see is that a lot of the humanitarian need that we are responding to is people can't get food. And why can't they get food? It's not because of we're not letting illicit Venezuelan oil continue to make Raúl Castro rich; it's because the government can't put food on the shelves. They can't - they have billions of dollars, but they don't use it to buy food for ordinary Cubans, right? They let these government-run stores go completely empty. They're not stocked. And so what you've had is a humanitarian catastrophe. And yes, energy infrastructure is a part of it, but a lot of it's because the government, again, can't maintain basic infrastructure. They can't maintain basic power infrastructure.

And so I think, obviously, the President has been very clear and the Secretary has been very clear about what we're responding to in putting some of the restrictions on sales of oil and these illicit transactions of oil to Cuba. But that's, again, responsive to the fact that the main beneficiary of these oil transfers has been the Cuban regime, which continues to be designated as a state sponsor of terror, that's done all sorts of things across our region to make Americans less safe, that has the largest Russian signal intelligence facility in the world, massive Chinese signal intelligence - all of these things, right? And where is all of that oil going? It's to fund this security apparatus that's repressed ordinary Cubans, certainly, and has made the United States less safe.

So I think that the narrative that the humanitarian crisis - years and years and years - I mean, look, I don't know that I've said this in a public setting before, but I'm half-Cuban. My mom was born in Havana, and she lives in Miami, so all her friends - we have family in Cuba and all of those networks. I mean, for years and years and years, you ask anyone that's being honest about this, and the situation in Cuba has been getting worse for years and years. It was getting worse under Biden. That's why we saw this massive wave of migration. That's why we saw all of the desperation that we saw under Biden.

So this idea that some change in the last few weeks about oil is what's responsible for what's going on Cuba is simply not true.

QUESTION:Jacob Gardenswartz with Scripps News. Thanks so much for doing this. I guess short of outright regime change, can you speak to what specific actions you'd like to see the Cuban Government take, or the U.S. would like to see the Cuban Government take, as a means of opening up either greater humanitarian assistance, as you said, or perhaps easing some of these more recent restrictions, et cetera?

MR LEWIN:Look, I mean, I'm here to talk about the humanitarian assistance. And certainly, the number one demand from my perspective is that they continue to allow the provision of assistance. And as I said, we'd like to do more, and so we hope that they're able to allow partners who are just interested in the humanitarian situation, like the Church, to deliver assistance without politicization.

You'd have to ask the President and the Secretary about broader considerations. I think that the President and the Secretary have enumerated some of these considerations, but those conversations - if they happen - will happen with the principals.

QUESTION:Thanks. Jennifer Hansler with CNN. Thanks for doing this, Jeremy. Can you give us a little more details about what is actually in this humanitarian assistance? And will it be usable in light of all of these fuel shortages?

MR LEWIN:Yeah. So I think we've got some great footage of us sort of doing the walkthrough of some of the boxes that we had delivered in the first package. But it's canned tuna, rice, beans, pasta, things like that, basic necessities, those little solar lamps that allow you to also charge your phone, hygiene kits, basic necessities like that. And all of it, like you see in other disaster zones and other humanitarian crisis zones, is designed for an environment where you don't need a supply of reliable electricity. So whether it's the solar lamps or things like that, or food that doesn't go bad or require refrigeration and stuff, it's intended to sort of be responsive to the needs of a challenging environment. So we expect that it'll be fully usable in light of whatever fuel restrictions the regime continues to put on the people of the island.

I'll also say that the partners have taken a lot of care to make sure that they're distributing things in a way that reaches people, that doesn't require them to use scarce fuel to get humanitarian assistance. So they're literally going door to door and giving boxes to older people and other people as well. So we continue to think that - and our team has been tracking this really closely - that the Caritas team has done an exceptional job ensuring that every box goes to great use in reaching people and tracking it very, very closely. And we expect that we'll have exactly the same result with this next package of aid as well.

QUESTION:Yes. Thank you. Eric Martin with Bloomberg News. I know that Abigail asked about the contact, any engagement in the specific delivery of humanitarian assistance. But can you share any details? I know the President has spoken to the idea that the U.S. administration and the Cuban regime are in touch at the highest level. Can you share any details of who is involved with that or when that's occurring, in terms of trying to get the Cuban Government either to change its behavior or for a change in the leadership of the government, so that this kind of humanitarian support in the future is not necessary and so that Cuba has a functioning and prosperous economy?

MR LEWIN:I would refer back to the President's comments. I think when the President and the Secretary and others are ready to share additional details about our broader policy towards Cuba, they will certainly do so. I think the Secretary spoke about this at his recent hearing as well, so I'd point you to those comments.

MODERATOR:We will now turn to our virtual participants. For virtual participants, please be sure to write your name and affiliation in the user label to help us identify you. For questions in English, please use the "raise your hand" function to be called upon, and remember to mute yourself before speaking. For questions in Spanish, please submit your questions using the Q&A feature.

I have a hand raised from Danika Coto, from Associated Press. Please unmute your mic; you now have the floor.

QUESTION:Yes, thank you for this opportunity. I'd like to know if there is an oil tanker in Venezuela headed to Cuba with 150,000 barrels of gasoline under U.S. supervision.

MR LEWIN:I don't have anything to share about that topic at this time. Sorry.

MODERATOR:Thank you. We now have Nora Gámez Torres from the Miami Herald. Please unmute yourself; you have the floor.

QUESTION:Hi. Thank you so much for doing this. Cuba's leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, just said his government will resist any pressure from the Trump Administration, and he said they're ready to - he signaled they're ready to let the population -

MR LEWIN:Could you raise the volume a little bit? I can't hear the question, sorry.

QUESTION:Sorry. Can you hear me now?

MR LEWIN:Sort of, if you speak loudly.

QUESTION:So Cuba's leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, just said his government will resist any pressure from the Trump Administration. He signaled they're ready to let the population take the brunt of the restrictions on oil supply. So if the Cuban Government does not come to the negotiating table like President Trump wants, what's next? What can you tell us about the next steps?

MR LEWIN:Well, look, Díaz-Canel and the regime, they should be focused on providing for their people, not making these blustery statements, not talking about things that are fictitious, getting people riled up. Again, I think first of all, you don't want to play those games with the President. I think the Secretary said this after the operation to capture Maduro, so I think our position on that is very clear.

But with respect to Cuba, again, this is a regime that - I was detailing in response to Matt's question, but - has failed for years and years and years - decades - to build any semblance of a market economy, of any economy at all; to provide basic goods, to - has hoarded all of the resources for the few senile old men that run the country, for their henchmen, for the security apparatus that has spent more time meddling abroad - whether it's colonizing Venezuela or engaging in foreign wars, serving as mercenaries, imprisoning doctors and sending them to third countries to create money for the regime that then, again, gets hoarded by the regime.

So that's what they're spending their time and attention on, and Díaz-Canel is spending his time and attention on repressing the Cuban people and lying to them. But again, I think the people of Cuba see exactly the situation that their regime has created for them. They go to the store and see that there's no bread, and then they go and see now that the United States is delivering food in a completely nonpolitical way, just trying to reach the people.

So he can talk a big game, but again, any government, its first responsibility is always to provide for its people, and that's why, of course, here at home we have this agenda of domestic prosperity and strength that the President has led, recovering from the decline and inflation and everything else of Biden. And so we'd encourage Díaz-Canel and all of those in the Cuban regime to focus first and foremost on taking care of their people rather than all this ridiculous tough talk about the United States.

MODERATOR:We now have Matthew Russell Lee from the Inner City Press: "Can you please speak to how this initiative shows the increasing lack of relevance of the United Nations, given UN failures from Sudan to Gaza to Venezuela?"

MR LEWIN: Well, I'll touch on a couple of examples. I was at an event with Tom Fletcher, under secretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and the emergency relief coordinator at the UN, with Dr. Boulos. And we were announcing additional humanitarian support for the people of Sudan and the work that's being done through the Quad and through the work that Dr. Boulos is doing, but also the UN has been a critical partner, and they continue to - their teams are on the ground risking their lives every day to deliver humanitarian support. And Tom and I have had a good relationship, and we're working very closely on getting access for their teams and helping the people of Sudan.

On Gaza, I think when Jared Kushner was announcing the Board of Peace - which, again, the Board of Peace is a tremendous leadership effort by the President but was blessed by a UN Security Council resolution, and the UN is - continues to be a partner in all of that. And when Jared was announcing it, he talked about the contributions that Tom and others in the UN system have done in providing humanitarian support and executing on the President's comprehensive plan to end the conflict.

So I don't think that all of those examples are necessarily the same. In Venezuela, what we saw was it was a law enforcement operation, right? I mean, you saw a government that had been - a country that had been taken over by a cartel, taken over by a cartel leader that was wanted by the United States, that had done all these international acts of terror, had done all this narco-trafficking, had abused his own people.

So I mean, look, the United Nations has never been doing that type of work. Certainly, I think, the President has said about the UN, it does have tremendous potential, and it's just places like Sudan where that potential is so great, and we're heartened to continue to work with the UN system and others on that. I signed an agreement in December in Geneva that talks about reforming the UN system, particularly the humanitarian system, removing some of the duplication, getting the agencies to work together under one roof, moving to more flexible and efficient pooled fund vehicles, getting greater accountability, removing some of the overhead and some of the overpaid things and all the stuff that I think this administration and conservatives have been talking about for a long time.

So there's a lot of hard reform work to be done in the UN system, and we continue to advocate for that, Ambassador Waltz and others. But I think all of these situations are different. And the UN, it has to prove that it is still relevant. I think that's absolutely true. But the UN has never been - when the United States is strong, the UN has always been a sideshow, right? And what you see is under Biden or - the United States has lost its mantle as the - creating peace through strength as the strongest nation in the world. You see sort of this multilateral system start to take root and do all of these various things, and you saw the result of that. I mean, wars everywhere, chaos everywhere, a great humanitarian need. And what we see is President Trump, by restoring American strength, by restoring American prosperity and leadership, has resolved all of these conflicts, resolved all of these wars, is leading humanitarian responses, and is helping making the world safer for Americans and creating opportunities for our companies, for our firms, and for our people. So - but I think all of these situations are different.

MODERATOR:We have time for one last question. We have a written question from Isabel Espronceda, Office of Cuban Broadcasting: "Which provinces of Cuba will the aid be destined for?"

MR LEWIN: I think the aid is mostly intended for the eastern part of the island, where I think the humanitarian need continues to be greatest. The initial deliveries of aid were mostly in Holguin and Santiago. I think we'll have to work with the - Caritas and the on-the-ground providers to determine the exact mix of assistance. Again, we've mostly distributed the aid that we announced and that we unveiled a few weeks ago. And as we work to sort of restock on the American side, get those boxes filled again, get the charter flights and everything up and running, we're going to continue to work with the on-the-ground providers and our team on the ground and the embassy and others to figure out where to target the assistance to reach the most people in need.

MODERATOR:That concludes today's briefing. Thank you for your participation. An English audio recording and a transcript in English and Spanish of this event will be available at state.gov.

MR LEWIN: Thank you.