The U.S. State Department announced on Thursday that it will send an additional $6 million worth of direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people still heavily affected by last year’s Hurricane Melissa as the nation’s heavily dysfunctional communist regime finds itself on the brink of collapse.

In a statement, the State Department detailed that the direct assistance will be delivered through pre-packaged commodities shipped from Miami, Florida, and delivered locally by the Catholic Church and Caritas in partnership with the U.S. government. The State Department recalled that this delivery method has proven highly effective at ensuring that the Castro regime cannot interfere or divert the supplies indented for the nation’s most needy.

The State Department used the same logistics to successfully deliver an initial $3 million package of humanitarian assistance last month to Cubans affected by Hurricane Melissa. The methods employed effectively bypassed the Castro regime’s interference while ensuring transparency and accountability. At the time, charter flights from Miami to Holguín and Santiago de Cuba delivered hundreds of food kits and hygiene and water treatment kits to over 1,000 families.

“As with the first tranche of direct foreign assistance, let there be no doubt: the regime must not make any effort to interfere with the provision of this lifesaving support. We remain vigilant in tracking any diversion or frustration of U.S. assistance efforts, and the regime will be accountable to the United States and its own people for any interference,” the State Department’s statement read.

“Beyond this tranche of assistance, the United States stands ready to surge even greater direct support to the Cuban people. The corrupt regime must simply permit it,” the statement continued.

The head of the U.S. embassy in Havana, Chargé d’Affaires Mike Hammer, travelled to the municipality of Cacocum in eastern Cuba on Friday to verify the ongoing distribution of the U.S. humanitarian aid to local residents. Hammer’s visit to Cacocum marks the diplomat’s latest trip part of his campaign to reach out to local residents. Hammer’s visits and open engagement with local Cubans has repeatedly drawn the ire of the Castro regime, which accused him last year of being a “subversive agent” for engaging in diplomatic activities and conversing with locals. Hammer speaks Spanish fluently.

Last week, the ruling communists had regime thugs to carry out an “act of repudiation” against the American diplomat — a tactic coined by the Castro regime that sees a mob of Communist Party and state security agents surround a target, lashing out a barrage of insults and threats to intimidate dissidents and people critical of the regime.

The communist Castro regime, which has ruled Cuba for 67 years, presently finds itself in a precarious situation stemming from the decades-long disastrous mismanagement of Cuba which has pushed the country’s entire infrastructure to the brink of complete ruin. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order addressing the national security threats posed by Cuba, a longtime state sponsor of terrorism.

In recent days, President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration is engaging in talks with the Cuban regime. This week, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío refuted President Trump and claimed that the Castro regime is not engaged in any kind of formal negotiations with the United States.

“I think the fact that the Cuban government is on its last leg and its country is about to collapse, they should be wise in their statements directed towards the President of the United States, but as I just reiterated, the President is always willing to engage in diplomacy and I believe that’s something that is taking place with the Cuban government,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.

Rather than present solutions for Cubans to the numerous communist-caused problems that the nation’s people must endure, the regime’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel held a press conference on Thursday in which he called on Cubans to “resist creatively,” stressing, “I am not an idealist; difficult times are ahead.”

“There is no failed state, but rather a state that has had to face maximum pressure from the world’s leading power,” Díaz-Canel said.

Díaz-Canel claimed that Cuba has not received oil shipments since December, before U.S. forces carried out a law enforcement operation in Caracas to arrest Nicolás Maduro. According to Díaz-Canel, no oil has entered the country since Trump ordered a “blockade” of Venezuelan tankers. The Independent outlet 14 y Medio pointed out that Díaz-Canel made no mention of the 80,000 barrels of oil that the Castro regime received from Mexico in early January prior to Mexico cancelling a late January shipment.

Díaz-Canel claimed to reporters that the communist regime is willing to establish talks with the United States on “any of the topics you wish to discuss or debate” but only if they are held “under equal conditions and without pressure.”

“Under what conditions? Without pressure. Under pressure, dialogue is impossible. Without preconditions, on an equal footing, with respect for our sovereignty, our independence, and our self-determination, without addressing issues that we might perceive as interference in our internal affairs,” he said.

Local Cubans told 14 y Medio that they chose to tune out of Díaz-Canel’s broadcast. A resident of Santi Spiritus explained to the outlet that “he [Díaz-Canel] is talking nonsense, and we’re not here for that.”

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

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