Cuban Ambassador Discusses US Relations

I have the Cuban ambassador, what is your name again?

Ernesto, okay. Soberong Guzman.

And he's come to see me here in New York because the Cuban people

need a bit of help.

So Ernesto was just explaining to me that because they have no power,

there's thousands of people waiting for treatment in the hospital.

They have a fantastic health service, of course, in Cuba,

A, because they educate their people and in consequence they have

hugely more numbers of qualified doctors and everything else than we do in the West.

And so I was just asking Ernesto what I could do to help

and it seems as if what I could do to help is

to make this video of him sitting here in my living room.

And I will say something, go on Ernesto, go on, tell me, keep telling me.

You want a dialogue with the US, is that what you were saying?

I think that as I told you, we have been insisting to have a dialogue with

the US authorities.

You know, we think

that we have a lot of things to do in terms of cooperation between Cuba and the

US in different fields.

You know, we are neighbor country, we have a difference, but at the same time,

we think that we have the possibility.

to talk, and first of all, to establish a bilateral agenda.

Secondly, to try to cooperate in

all scenarios that we have opportunities.

And thirdly, to talk peacefully about our difference.

You know, this is what we are really looking for during these 67 years

of the revolution.

There is no any reason for this collective

punishment that Cuban people is suffering right now.

What Ernesto is talking about is not a conversation between Donald Trump

and somebody else.

It's a conversation between the people of Cuba and the people of the United

States of America.

Because we're all the same people, okay?

And we all have all the same problems, always.

And so we need to empathize with one another and sympathize with one another.

And if possible, extend our hands across oceans and beyond

walls of nationality or religion and whatever else might be separating us in order

to help one another.

So I entirely agree with Ernesto.

And it's absolutely absurd that the United States of America has been

waging this war

on Cuba since the socialist revolution of the 50s.

And so, and we should let the Cuban people organize themselves however they

want to organize themselves and get on with ever what they want to do.

We know, of course,

that the gangsters who used to run Cuba before the revolution, before Castro,

before the People's Republic was formed.

would like Cuba back so that they could go

on running whatever it was that they did for a living, sugar and gambling, mainly,

as far as one can tell.

We thank the Cuban people for everything

they've done for the world since the revolution, and we encourage them

in the years to come.

I'm gonna shut up now because I talk too much, but Ernesto doesn't, and I'd like

him to have the last word in this. Go, you're on.

Roger, thank you very much for this opportunity, and we just ask to let Cuba live,

like you already mentioned, you know?

We are neighbours, we have a lot of things in common with the American people,

and we just want to live one side by other, you know?

Bravo, pick up your glass of water.

Here's to you, my brother. You are my brother.

I'm English, you're Cuban,

there are many Americans around us here.

We have to reach out to one another across the oceans and look after each other.

That's the only thing that matters in all of this.

So thank you so much for coming over this afternoon.