Cuba will release 51 people from prison, an unexpected move amid pressure from Trump

Cuba’s government said Thursday night it would release 51 people from the island’s prisons, in an unexpected move that comes as the Trump administration puts immense pressure on the country.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the release will take place in the coming days. It cast the release as an act of goodwill stemming from the country’s close relationship with the Vatican, which has helped broker prisoner release deals and U.S.-Cuba normalization talks in the past.

The government did not identify who it would release, except to say that “all have served a significant part of their sentence and have maintained good conduct in prison.”

It wasn’t immediately known if any of the people the government plans to release are political prisoners.

The nonprofit Prisoners Defenders has said there were 1,214 political prisoners in Cuba as of February 2026.

The Cuban government said it has granted pardons to 9,905 inmates since 2010. It added that in the past three years, another 10,000 people sentenced to imprisonment were released.

The announcement was made just hours before Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is scheduled to speak early Friday in another rare meeting with the press “to address national and international issues.”

The Trump administration has sought to block oil shipments to Cuba in recent months in a bid to pressure the island nation’s government. Fuel supplies in Cuba have run low, worsening the country’s energy crisis. The Trump-appointed top federal prosecutor in Miami is also weighing possible criminal charges against Cuban government officials.

President Trump and members of his administration have suggested the island’s longstanding regime — which has ruled Cuba since Fidel Casto’s rise to power in 1959 — could fall. Last week, the president said the U.S. is talking to the Cuban government, but added: “We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba.”

In January 2025, Cuba released prominent dissident José Daniel Ferrer as part of a government decision to gradually free more than 500 prisoners following talks with the Vatican. Ferrer left Cuba last October and is now in the United States.

He was one of several prisoners released in early 2025 as part of talks with the Vatican. The releases began a day after then-President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intent to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Vatican was also involved in early talks between the Obama administration and Cuba to normalize relations between the two countries.