Mexico is bolstering its efforts in its quest to find a way to ship oil to Cuba under . The president, Claudia Sheinbaum, indicated this Tuesday at a press conference from the National Palace that her Government is “at this moment making all the arrangements to be able to send oil again” to the island and that it has no “effects for the people of Mexico” with the tariff punishment that the Donald Trump Administration has promised for the countries that supply the Castro regime. Meanwhile, Havana faces a moment of energy and economic asphyxiation due to the Republican blockade, and several airlines have suspended their flights due to the impossibility of refueling.
Sheinbaum to any country that sells oil to Cuba, which he describes as “very unfair,” since they mainly hit the Cuban people. Mexico had become the island’s main supplier after the fall of Maduro and the transfer of Venezuelan oil control to Trump, who promised to close the crude oil tap for the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel. “The policies, practices and actions of the Government of Cuba are designed to harm the United States and support hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups and evil agents that seek to destroy the United States,” they wrote in the national emergency decree on Havana.
Ships leaving Mexico with a small fraction of the oil the island needs to supply itself interrupted shipments. The president has indicated that these shipments responded to a similar situation to that with other countries. Oil was also sent through humanitarian aid channels, but this flow has also been suspended. For the moment, the Mexican Government has maintained the shipment of supplies and food to alleviate the island’s crisis while it finds a way to resume oil aid, avoiding a tariff punishment from its largest trading partner. “We are going to continue helping with humanitarian aid of different types,” the president promised journalists, but she acknowledged that what the Cuban people need most now is fuel to keep hospitals and schools operating.
The blockade. The fuel shortage has hit one of its main incomes, tourism. Airlines have begun to cancel their flights after the Cuban Government announced the impossibility of refueling at its airports in a scenario of increasingly urgent aggravated shortages. The president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, cornered and forced to negotiate with the United States, asked Cubans for “effort” and “creativity,” while recognizing that . Meanwhile, Cubans are barely surviving with massive blackouts, the collapse of transportation and standing in lines of up to 26 hours to buy a can of gasoline, which they can only buy in dollars.
