Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said he has no intention of stepping down, pushing back on the idea during his first interview with an American television network, portions of which aired Thursday.

In a segment of a longer interview set to be broadcast Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, journalist Kristen Welker asked Díaz-Canel whether he would be “willing to step down if it meant saving Cuba.”

Before responding directly, Díaz-Canel challenged the premise of the question, asking whether it had been posed to other world leaders: “Is that a question from you, or is that coming from the State Department of the U.S. government?”

He went on to stress Cuba’s independence, saying, “In Cuba, the people who are in leadership position are not elected by the U.S. government, and they don’t have a mandate from the U.S. government. We have a free sovereign state.”

Díaz-Canel said his leadership was not driven by personal or political ambition but rather by the will of the Cuban people.

“If the Cuban people understand that I am not fit for office, that I have no reason to be here, then I should not be holding this position of president, I will respond to them,” he said.

The interview comes at a time of continued strain between Cuba and the United States, even as both sides acknowledge that discussions have taken place, though no specifics have been made public.

Díaz-Canel accused Washington of maintaining a “hostile policy” toward Cuba and argued that it has “no moral to demand anything from Cuba.”

He also said the U.S. should take responsibility for the impact of its policies, noting “and how much they have deprived the American people from a normal relationship with the Cuban people.”

While criticizing U.S. actions, Díaz-Canel said Cuba remains open to dialogue on any issue, without preconditions, stating it would proceed “not demanding changes from our political system as we are not demanding change from the American system, about which we have a number of doubts.”

Cuban officials continue to attribute the country’s worsening economic situation to U.S. energy restrictions, with fuel shortages affecting healthcare, transportation, and the production of goods.

In late March, a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil reached Cuba, marking the first such shipment in three months, with another delivery expected.

Despite earlier threats in January to impose tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, President Donald Trump ultimately allowed the shipment to go forward.

“Cuba’s finished,” Trump said at the time. “They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter.”