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An adviser to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana in 2023, a report revealed on Thursday. Danny Valdez, the mayor’s friend and adviser on Cuba policy during the campaign, confirmed the report to the outlet that wrote it. According to him, the Cuban government sees him as a potential partner in the efforts to lift the US embargo on the island.
This story comes from a since-taken down blog post called “The Cuba Diaries.” The “Cuba Diaries” supposedly detail the time that a large delegation of travelers went to Havana, Cuba from October 22nd to 26th, 2023. They reportedly stayed at a high end hotel in Havana and met many prominent Cuban politicians during their stay, reported Just The News.
During their visit, they apparently lobbied for the lifting of the decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba. The current embargo was imposed in the early 1960s and codified into federal law by the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996. Any attempt to repeal it would need to originate in Congress. Cuba has for decades made the removal of the U.S. embargo a central demand of its diplomats.
While the source did not go into further detail regarding the specific advice he provided to the candidate and whether or not he was able to enforce his Cuba platform throughout the campaign, Valdez had previously advised Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Cuba policy, and in 2025, he had hosted a fundraiser for the candidate.
Valdez founded Cuban Americans for Cuba, a non-profit organization advocating an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba, in April 2026, a few years after he helped Mamdani with Cuba policy and later hosted a fundraiser for the Mayor’s 2025 re-election campaign.
Díaz-Canel has ruled Cuba since 2018, and serves as the first secretary of the Communist Party, which is the only party in Cuba. Hundreds of people were jailed following the July 2021 protests in Cuba, and policies towards the island are a sensitive topic in South Florida, where the country’s largest Cuban exile community resides. Travel to Cuba and engagement with its leadership is typically met with criticism in the region.
