Cuba Says Biden Applies Blockade Even More Aggressively Than His Predecessors

Biden has maintained many of Trump’s sanctions against Cuba. He must fulfill his promise to reverse Trump’s actions.

By Marjorie Cohn

January 6, 2023

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Source: TruthOut

End the Embargo Against Cuba!


“The current U.S. government, the one of Joseph Biden, of all those that the Cuban Revolution has known, is the one that has most aggressively and effectively applied the economic blockade,” Carlos Fernández de Cossío, vice minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, declared in a speech on December 14. “It is the one that punishes the most, the one that causes the most damage to the daily life of Cubans and the economy as a whole.”

Fernández de Cossío cited the disruption of Cuba’s fuel receipt by sea, and economic depression resulting in the “extraordinary flow of Cuban migrants” as examples of the severe harms that Cubans have faced due to the Biden administration’s implementation of the blockade.

In his address at a conversation series on “Cuba in the Foreign Policy of the United States of America,” held on December 14 at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana, Fernández de Cossío took aim at the Biden administration’s enforcement of the blockade against Cuba, stating, “there can be no doubt that the economic blockade is the defining factor in the bilateral relations” between the United States and Cuba.

Biden pledged during his 2020 presidential campaign that he would “try to reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families.” In 2021, he claimed, “We stand with the Cuban people.”

But Biden’s actions belie his words. Fernández de Cossío said that Biden has applied “with absolute and surprising loyalty … the policy of maximum economic pressure that was designed by his predecessor, Donald Trump.”

In 2015, the Obama administration restored full diplomatic relations with Cuba, released Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. for trying to deter further terrorist attacks against Cuba, relaxed restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba, and ended some economic prohibitions between the U.S. and Cuba. It also facilitated the export of U.S. internet hardware and telecommunications and established increased cooperation between the United States and Cuba in intelligence-gathering, drug interdiction, scientific research and environmental protection.

Trump undid the progress Obama had made and imposed 243 onerous new sanctions — known as unilateral coercive measures in international law — on Cuba as part of his “maximum pressure” strategy.

The Embargo Was Imposed to Cause Cubans Hunger and Desperation

More than 60 years ago, following the triumph of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the U.S. government imposed an economic embargo on Cuba. The rationale for the embargo was detailed in a State Department memo that advocated the “disenchantment and disaffection” of the Cuban people through “economic dissatisfaction and hardship” so they would overthrow the Fidel Castro government. The memo recommended the denial of “money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

The embargo (which the Cubans call a blockade) “is not a single law, but a complex patchwork of laws, presidential proclamations, and regulations that Fidel Castro once called ‘a tangled ball of yarn,’” American University professor and Cuba scholar William M. LeoGrande wrote in the National Security Archive. “It has evolved over the sixty years since President John F. Kennedy put it in place, loosening and tightening from one administration to the next, depending on the president’s preference for using hard power or soft power in dealing with Cuba.”

Since the Cuban Revolution, the United States “has waged an unceasing assault, both military and economic, against the Cuban people, organizing an invasion, assassinations, terrorist attacks against civilians and systematic economic sabotage,” Isaac Saney wrote at Resumen. The blockade has cost Cuba more than $130 billion in damage, according to the United Nations.

Some Positive Bilateral Steps Taken Last Year

Despite this rocky history, Fernández de Cossío acknowledged that some positive bilateral steps were taken between the United States and Cuba last year. He cited migration cooperation; U.S. grants of 20,000 visas annually; a return to U.S. embassy services in Havana; cooperation between Cuban Border Guard Troops and the U.S. Coast Guard for interception on the high seas and return to Cuba; an agreement to hold exchanges on law enforcement, oil spills, health and the environment; and commercial flights from the United States to different Cuban provinces. The United States has again authorized “people to people” educational group travel to Cuba, but individual travel for education is still prohibited.

Fernández de Cossío also praised U.S. offers of humanitarian aid to Cuba “without political conditions” after a fire at the supertanker base in Matanzas last August and $2 million for repairs after Hurricane Ian. But Cuba still has not received that assistance.
Negative Steps Taken by the Biden Administration

The vice minister of foreign affairs also listed “developments in the opposite direction.” These include the recent U.S. designation of Cuba as a country of special concern in matters of religious freedom “without any real basis, on grounds that are dishonest.”

“In late 2022, the Biden administration took the unprecedented action to list Cuba as a nation of ‘special concern’ regarding religious freedom — which even the Trump administration did not do, and which was not recommended by the related commission created by U.S. law. This is absurd,” Art Heitzer, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s Cuba Subcommittee, told Truthout.

“Members of my Methodist church were prosecuted by the U.S. government for visiting their sister Methodist church’s centennial in Havana,” Heitzer said. “The late Cardinal Jaime Ortega, then head of Cuba’s Roman Catholic Church, told me after mass at the cathedral that he favored ending the U.S. embargo; and because of religious objections, the Cuban government delayed by several years the referendum process which has now granted constitutional protection to same-sex marriage.”

Fernández de Cossío also mentioned the Biden administration’s commitment in May to allow remittances to Cuba, but said that still has not happened and there is no “commitment to dismantle the measures announced by the Trump administration to disrupt the remittances.”

In addition, although the U.S. government announced measures to boost internet penetration and interconnection in Cuba, the United States still prohibits access for Cubans to more than 200 private commercial websites, according to Fernández de Cossío. This includes sites for education, health, science and technology, art, culture and innovation.

The U.S. government, Fernández de Cossío stated, admits that it “intends to promote the Cuban private sector, not to contribute to the development of the Cuban economy, not to improve the standard of living of the population, not to help a majority sector of the population, but rather identifies it as an instrument of political subversion … a political weapon.”

What Biden Could Do to Relax the Blockade

Fernández de Cossío described steps Biden could take “to deliver on his declared priority of promoting human rights and caring for the welfare of the Cuban people.”

Biden could remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. In 2015, the Obama-Biden administration removed Cuba from the list. But at the end of Trump’s term, his State Department added Cuba back onto the list. Within weeks, Fernández de Cossío noted, “45 banks and financial institutions with long-standing relations with Cuba severed their ties with our country.” This impacted Cuba’s trade and access to credit. “It is a devastating impact,” he said. “And even today, on account of its presence on that list, Cuba is still encountering trade and financial organizations that refuse to interact with us for fear of retaliation by the U.S. government.”

Dozens of lawyers have signed an open letter to Biden, stating, “There is no legal or moral justification for Cuba to remain on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.” They wrote, “Biden has the power to remove Cuba from [the list] and reverse many Trump-era sanctions through executive action. However, Biden has chosen to defend Trump’s aggressive policies.”

Trump also stiffened the economic and travel blockade and activated Title III of the Helms Burton Act, which was enacted to discourage foreign investment in Cuba. Trump’s activation of Title III greenlighted thousands of lawsuits that will discourage tourism and investment in Cuba. In one such lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom issued an order on December 30 against four Florida-based cruise shipping companies that sailed to Cuba, requiring them to pay more than $400 million in damages. Fernández de Cossío pointed out that Biden could have suspended Title III like Trump’s predecessors. Activating Title III has had “a deterrent impact on our developmental purpose of attracting foreign capital,” he added.

In addition, “[The Biden] administration could have ceased the practice of pressuring governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to refuse medical cooperation provided by Cuba,” Fernández de Cossío said. “This U.S. action, of course, is intended to prevent dozens of thousands of people from receiving medical services, which is what Cuban doctors provide.”

Biden could also have ended “punitive measures, threats, and persecution against fuel exporting companies, shipping companies, port agencies, insurance and reinsurance agencies all aimed at depriving Cuba of fuel supplies that our country requires to function,” which “has had an extremely severe impact on the economy and the lives of the Cuban people,” according to Fernández de Cossío.

The Purpose of the Blockade Is Regime Change

The blockade, the vice minister said, “has an impact on everything.” That includes electrical service, transportation, the availability of medicine and material for medical services, and the ability to obtain supplies for food production and building materials.

“The U.S. government cannot pretend to treat Cuba as if it were part of its territory or treat Cuba as if it were a colonial dominion, or treat Cuba as if it were an adversary defeated in a war. We are none of the three,” Fernández de Cossío declared. He cited Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s observation that the intention of the United States is “to strangle the Cuban economy and thus try to provoke social collapse and a political crisis in Cuba.” Although the U.S. has failed in that purpose, it has led to “economic depression” in Cuba and “the extraordinary flow of Cuban migrants.”

Biden himself has called Cuba a “failed state,” and his administration “is doing virtually all that it can to make it so,” Heitzer said.

“The embargo’s overt purpose is to strangle the Cuban economy to promote regime change,” according to the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE), a coalition of organizations working to end the Cuba blockade. The United States spends more than $25 million each year to fund regime change programs against Cuba.

On November 3, for the 30th time, the United Nations General Assembly called for an end to the illegal U.S. blockade against Cuba. The vote was 185 in favor, two opposed (the U.S. and Israel), and two abstentions (Brazil and Ukraine). The resolution affirmed “the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention and non-interference in their internal affairs and freedom of international trade and navigation, which are also enshrined in many international legal instruments.”

Joe Biden must make good on his promise to reverse Trump’s actions tightening the blockade against Cuba, return to the measures taken by the Obama-Biden administration, and work to dismantle the illegal and immoral blockade once and for all.

Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. A prominent scholar and lecturer, her books include Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law; and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues She provides commentary for local, regional, national and international media and is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

Trump’s Cuba Memorandum Provokes Strong Criticism Amid New US Aggressiveness Abroad   

W. T. Whitney

 July 16, 2025

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Photograph Source: hakkun – CC BY-SA 3.0

The Trump administration on June 30 released its “National Security Presidential Memorandum 5” on U.S. plans for Cuba. Criticism from Cuba’s government and international commentators welled up, as if entirely new forms of anti-Cuba aggression were in the works. That may or may not be so.  Actually, the recent Memorandum was a re-issue of the document put forth by the first Trump administration on June 16, 2017. 

The eruption of an unusually forceful reaction to a Memorandum that says nothing new seems odd. It’s not. For one thing, the Memorandum creates an opening for U.S. government departments and agencies to fashion entirely new devices aimed at destroying Cuba’s economy. The 2017 Memorandum did exactly that, and what happened was disastrous.

And more: the international context of U.S. assaults on Cuba has drastically changed. U.S. foreign intervention now shows as war from the sky against Iran and as U.S. support and military hardware for genocide against Gazans. Is Cuba next in line for extreme measures?

Prescriptions

The Memorandum’s ostensible use is as a directive to heads of the various departments making up the U.S. government’s executive branch. It requires them to send President Trump reports on new tools they have devised for beating up on Cuba, and to do so within 30 days. They must “adjust the current Cuba regulations in order to ensure adherence, so that unauthorized transactions with Cuba and impermissible travel to Cuba are effectively banned.”

The document attests to the authority already vested in the departments to take action against Cuba. It cites the 1996 Helms-Burton Law as having legitimized the U.S. purpose of regime change for Cuba. 

The Memorandum sets forth various U.S. goals and various ways to implement them. These include promotion of free enterprise in Cuba, channeling funds to the Cuban people and not to their government, “restructuring certain travel arrangements and [US] travel,” and ending supposed human rights abuses in Cuba. This year’s Memorandum once more calls for depriving Cuba’s military and intelligence services of money derived from U.S. tourism. 

This Memorandum, as with the other one, bans U.S. tourism to the island. All U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba for permitted reasons must keep records of their transactions in Cuba and for five years ensure that they are available for potential Treasury Department inspection. 

The Memorandum directs U.S. officials to expand Cubans’ access to the Internet and to a “free press” and to oppose efforts at the United Nations and “other international forums” aimed at blocking U.S. policies on Cuba. Annually, the secretaries of the various departments of the executive branch must report to the president “regarding the engagement of the United States with Cuba to ensure that engagement is advancing the interests of the United States.” 

President Biden never disavowed Trump’s 2017 Memorandum. As a result, actions adverse to Cuba carried out under its authority remain in force.

Reaction

In discussion on July 2 with Randy Alonso Falcón, host of Cuban TV’s “Round Table” (Mesa Rotunda), Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío portrayed the recent Memorandum as a “political platform, a political document that is propagandistic, but also one that is a political declaration of U.S. intentions serving as a cover for actions it will take and others already in effect.” 

As examples of the latter, he cited both sanctions applied to ships of third countries bringing fuel to Cuba and denial of access to the U.S. Visa Waiver program to those otherwise eligible citizens of 40 named countries who have visited Cuba. Now, potential travelers to Cuba often choose not to visit Cuba so as to preserve their eligibility.  The intended result has been damage to Cuba’s tourism industry.

Cossio claimed that U.S. measures prompted by the recent Memorandum pose extra danger from “the hand of [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio … [and] of that clique that has made money and political careers out of hostility towards Cuba.” He laments harassment against individuals and businesses licensed to export goods to Cuba’s private sector, suggesting that the U.S. government seeks to harm Cuba’s private sector.  He worries that some Cuban-Americans visiting in Cuba may be barred from returning to the United States.  

The foreign ministry official pointed to a big change. Cubans have been “receiving privileged treatment on crossing the US border.” They are now vulnerable to “all [U.S.] anti-migrant actions including the alligator prison in Florida.”

International criticism of the recent Trump Memorandum erupted promptly and from many quarters, beginning in Cuba. Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the U.S. “purpose of inflicting the greatest possible damage and suffering.” National Assembly President Esteban Lazo, predicted their “vile purpose will fail in the face of Cubans’ unity and determination. “Cuba will defeat this new aggression,” pronounced Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) judged the Memorandum to be “aimed at forcefully hitting at all sectors of Cuban society.” Argentina’s International Committee for Peace, Justice, and Dignity for the Peoples declared its support for U.S. opponents of the Memorandum. Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) on July 3 initiated an international fundraising campaign to send essential medicines to Cuba. 

Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum on July 2 denounced the Memorandum, while declaring that “Mexico is the country that for decades voted against the blockade of Cuba and that will always be our position.” Mao Ning, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 2 stated that, “We exhort the USA to immediately raise the blockade and sanctions against Cuba, and eliminate the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.” 

The most explosive and revealing reaction came from Rosa Miriam Elizalde, editor of Cubadebate.cu. She was echoing Vice Minister Cossio’s observation that “Perhaps U.S. officials imbued with this euphoria over a new U.S. foreign policy of imposing peace through force are demanding something similar with Cuba.”

Writing for Mexico’s La Jornada news service on July 5, Elizalde points to “[D]éjà vu: More than 20 years after the United States invaded Iraq under false pretexts, we are witnessing the same warmongering operetta in South Florida … During the spring of 2003, while the missiles were falling on Baghdad, the ultra-sector of Cuban emigration took to the streets of Miami with a disturbing slogan: ‘Iraq now; Cuba later’”. 

She notes that, “[T]he Miami propaganda machine is once again waving the flag of armed intervention [in Cuba], while the U.S. and Israel are escalating their military offensive in Iran.” She highlights Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s remark that, “This is how tyrants are confronted, not only in Iran, but also satraps in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Peace through force. That’s the American way.” 

Elizalde regards as ominous that “Trump invokes as an American military success the sad memory of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.” She describes a volatile situation in which “[i]mmigrants are hunted down like beasts, just like communists and Jews before World War II.” 

She views the current political climate as recalling that of 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq: “The logic is the same: misinform, isolate, demonize, justify sanctions and, if conditions are right, authorize intervention in the “dark places of the planet.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine

Cuban Boom

Cuba booms thanks to Canada.

Speaking Friday at a congress of leftist economists, Rodriguez said Cuba had transformed its economy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, once its chief supporter and trade partner.

An economy whose exports were 90 percent goods and only 10 percent services in 1989 now leans toward services, he said. Services now account for 76 percent of Cuba’s overall economy while primary goods, such as crops, amount to only 4 percent.

Rodriguez said growth in Cuba’s GDP "should reach more than 10 percent this 2007" despite high prices for imported food and fuel. Cuba has been aided by steadily rising domestic oil production as well as by significant fuel aid from Venezuela.

He said that if social services and commerce were dropped from the count, Cuba still would have shown 9.5 percent growth last year.

Cuba was aided last year by high prices for nickel and cobalt and by a continuing flow of tourists.

Rodriguez put the number of tourists for 2006 at 2.22 million – a slight drop from the 2.3 million Cuba reported for 2005 to the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

And it is far safer as a tourist resort than Mexico.

Air Canada launches seasonal Cuba link

Cuba ranks among Canadians' top three holiday destinations, Smith noted, adding that Air Canada flies to the Caribbean island 27 times per week.

And Canada's economic and political relationship with Cuba not only includes the tourist industry, but Sherritt and its unique bilateral trade agreement with Cuba for production of coal, oil, nickel and cobalt. Despite American attempts to apply their laws against Sherritt and other Canadian companies doing business in Cuba.

The U.S. government also appears to be stepping up its enforcement of the best known of its extra-territorial measures - laws enforcing its 45-year-old Cuban embargo.

One law prevents foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from having virtually any dealings with or in Cuba, while another allows U.S. entry to be refused to executives and directors of any company found to be "trafficking" assets confiscated by Cuba after the 1959 revolution.

Under the latter legislation, executives and directors of the Toronto resource company Sherritt International have been barred from the U.S. because the company has interests in a nickel mine and oil-and-gas ventures in Cuba.

And thankfully Canada continues to exert its sovereignty when dealing with Cuba.

Canada's silence on Washington's Cuba policy speaks volumes

Canadians continue to visit Cuba by the millions each year. Canadian businesses pursue mining, tourism and other interests on the island. And the Canadian government maintains normal diplomatic relations with Havana, normal being the operative word, says longtime Cuba observer John Kirk.

Both Kirk and Ritter, who visit the island regularly, emphasize that nothing is likely to shift in Cuba for many years, with or without Castro. They note that Cuba's economy has been getting progressively stronger over the past decade, with higher nickel prices, cheap oil from Venezuelan ally Hugo Chavez and more tourists - all developments that point away from civil unrest in the country.

That cheap oil from Chavez is payment for one of the service industry exchanges that Cuba is exporting; Docs-for-oil trade shows Cuba's flair

The OAS is now looking at its position on Cuba, and Canada as a member of the OAS is in the position of offsetting the United States, which opposes any rapprochement with Cuba.

And thanks to Canada you have a further extension of civil liberties in Cuba

US-based Episcopal Church names woman bishop in Cuba

Cuba was a diocese of the U.S. church until 1967, when it was forced to break away because hostility between the U.S. and Cuban governments made contacts difficult. Cuba's communist leaders were embracing official atheism at the time, a stance abandoned in the early 1990s.

It has operated under a Metropolitan Council now chaired by the archbishop of Canada, Andrew Hutchison. It also includes Jefferts Schori and the archbishop of the West Indies.

And Cuba's export Rum; Havana Club is number two in world sales, which included Canada and Europe but not the United States. Their loss.

I particularly like the Havana Club seven year old amber, which is has a smoky chocolate flavour and is so smooth you can drink straight or on the rocks, no mix. It is like a fine brandy or cognac.

The number one brand is Bacardi which continues to use its wealth to fund anti-Cuban Terrorists in Florida.

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cuba, castro, trade, Canada, tourism, rum, Sherritt, economy,

RUBIO'S REAL TARGET

Cuban economy is three weeks from collapse without new oil supplies

Cuba has only received one delivery of oil this year and will run out sometime in the next three weeks if fresh supplies are not found that could trigger an economic collapse. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin January 29, 2026

Cuba has only 15 to 20 days of oil left according to Kpler, and faces economic collapse without fresh supplies, as Trump turns the screws in the latest attempt at regime change in his Western hemisphere sphere of influence.

Crude exports to Havana are drying up fast, according to Kpler, as the US tightens a blockade of Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba and puts pressure on Mexico to halt supplies, the Financial Times reports.

Cuba is facing a deepening energy crisis that could cause the economy to collapse that has already triggered widespread power outages and raising fears of rationing and political instability.

The island is almost wholly dependent on Venezuela for oil but has received just one delivery of oil this year with no prospects for more following Operation Maduro on January 3 that decapitated the government and saw the US take control of the country’s oil sector.

As part of the regime change in Venezuela, US companies received 30mn-50mn barrels of oil that were handed over to big donors to the Trump administration in a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The US has built up its naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico and is threatening to impose a total naval blockade as part of an implicit attempt to change the Cuba regime. For the moment, the Trump administration has accepted a technocratic Venezuelan government, headed by the former Vice President Delcy Rodrigues, who has been made president of the interim government. Now the White House seems to be turning its attention to Cuba.

The shock move to topple the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is now awaiting trial in New York on “narco-terrorism” charges, is part of US President Donald Trump’s upgraded “Donroe Doctrine” that was spelled out in the National Security Strategy (NSS) released in December. That reintroduces the idea that the Western Hemisphere “belongs” to the US and leaves the Eastern Hemisphere to the likes of China and Russia.

Now in control of Venezuela, it appears that the White House would like to see the regime in Cuba change that has been under US embargo since 1962. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the first US-born Cuban to hold the post, has called the regime in Cuba a “brutal dictatorship” and linked the government to regional instability.

In comments to Congress’ Committee on Foreign Policy on January 28, Rubio said: “We would love to see the regime [in Cuba] change. That doesn’t mean we are going to make it change, but we would love to see it change. There is no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime.”

While experts say that it is unlikely that the US will mount another military invasion or special military operation, engineering an economic collapse is well within its capabilities. This policy fits with Trump’s increasingly aggressive use of economic and military tools to engineer regime change in countries he sees as rivals or foes. Currently the US is also massively building up a “massive armada” of naval power in the Persian Gulf and contemplating large-scale strikes on Tehran to “help” the mass protests there topple the Khamenei regime.

"A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose," Trump said in a post on Truth Social on January 28. The fleet, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, is larger than the one Trump sent to Venezuela, according to the president. "Like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary," Trump said.

The protests that have swept Iran since December 28 and exploded on January 8 to every region and city in the country were brought about partly by Western economic sanctions that saw the rial collapse and the ensuing economic hardships. Cutting Cuba off from its oil supplies could have much the same effect.

“They have a major crisis on their hands if more deliveries do not arrive in the coming weeks,” Jorge Piñón, a Cuba energy expert at the University of Texas, told the FT.

Cuba received just 84,900 barrels of oil in 2026 as of late January, Kpler, reports, all from a single Mexican tanker that arrived on January 9. That translates to just over 3,000 barrels per day, down sharply from an average of 37,000 b/d in 2025, which is still less than the 100,000 b/d the island needs to meet domestic demand, the FT reports. Without new deliveries, Cuba now has enough oil in storage to last for two or at most three more weeks before running out, say experts. Inventories were estimated at 460,000 barrels at the start of the year.

Trump claimed this week the Cuban regime was “very close to failing” and vowed there would be “no more oil” going to Havana following the US capture of Maduro.

The US has been squeezing supplies to Cuba since November when it tightened its embargo on Venezuela oil exports to the island state as it built up its flotilla in the Caribbean ahead of the military operation in the first week of this year. Kpler’s data shows zero deliveries from ENZ to Cuba since Maduro’s arrest, down from 46,500 b/d in December.

Mexico also supplies Cuba and became the main source of oil at the end of last year but is now caught between pressure from Washington and its long-standing ties with Havana.

Trump posted on January 11 that "there will be no more oil or money going to Cuba - zero," whilst US Navy surveillance drones have conducted repeated flights over Gulf of Mexico shipping routes since December.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has not denied reports that a planned January shipment was shelved under US pressure, calling it a “sovereign decision,” the FT reports.

On January 28, she clarified that oil exports to Cuba are conducted via Pemex contracts or humanitarian aid and as bnl IntelliNews reported, in an act of defiance, said on January 21 that deliveries of oil will continue for the meantime, despite US pressure.

"Very little of the crude oil produced in Mexico is sent to Cuba, but it is a form of solidarity in a situation of hardship and difficulty," Sheinbaum stated last week, "That doesn't have to disappear."

Mexico exported MXN10bn ($558mn) in petroleum products to Cuba during 2025, quadrupling the total sent throughout Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year Mexico presidency from 2012-2018.

Russia has also supplied Cuba in the past, but the last delivery was recorded arriving in October. Russia’s interior minister began a visit to Cuba on January 20 in a show of solidarity, but the Kremlin remains powerless to provide anything more than moral support. Algeria also supplies Cuba, but has not made a delivery since February 2025, according to Kpler.

Cuba’s economy has already been weakened by the regional instability in Trump's campaign against Venezuela. Declining tourism, sugar production, and chronic inflation, has robbed the government of some of its main foreign exchange earnings and expenditure power. Cuba generated only about half of the electricity required to meet domestic demand in 2025 and increased power cuts loom as energy supplies evaporate. State utility Unión Eléctrica said 101 distributed generation plants were offline due to fuel shortages, removing 927MW from the grid. A lack of lubricants has cut a further 156MW, according to official figures.

Cuba's leadership remains defiant. President Miguel Díaz-Canel posted on X on January 28: “The harshness of these times and the brutality of the threats against Cuba will not hold us back.” Demonstrations have begun, but so far the population is supporting the embattled government.

To avoid rationing, Cuba has begun sourcing fuel from Africa as traditional oil supplies from Venezuela decline sharply, deepening pressure on the island’s power system, according to satellite-tracking data. The tanker Mia Grace departed Lomé in Togo on January 19 and is due to reach Havana on February 4, the Colombian outlet Semana reported on January 27.

The government has also launched military drills to prepare for a possible Maduro-style US special military operation against the island. Cuba’s National Defence Council approved plans to shift the country into a “state of war” on January 20 in the face of rising tensions with the US.

Trump threatens new tariffs on countries supplying Cuba with oil


US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened new tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, stepping up pressure on the Communist-run island and long-time US adversary. An executive order issued under a national emergency declaration did not specify tariff rates or name the countries whose exports could be targeted.

Issued on: 30/01/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

US President Donald Trump threatened ⁠new tariffs on Thursday on countries supplying oil to Cuba, escalating a pressure campaign against the Communist-run island and long-time foe of the United States.

The move, ​authorised by an executive order under a national emergency declaration, ‍stopped short of specifying tariff rates or singling out any countries whose products could face US tariffs.

Cuba's ​state-run media shot back shortly after Trump's announcement, warning that the ​order threatened to paralyze electricity generation, agricultural production, water supply and health services on an island already suffering a crippling economic crisis.

"What is the goal? A genocide of the Cuban people," Cuba's government said in a statement on the nightly TV newscast. "All spheres of life will be suffocated by the US government."

Emboldened by the US military's ‍seizure of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a deadly raid earlier this month, Trump has repeatedly ​talked of acting against Cuba and pressuring its leadership.

Trump said this week that "Cuba will be failing pretty soon," adding that Venezuela, once the island's ‌top oil supplier, has not recently sent oil or money to Cuba.

Reuters exclusively reported last week that Mexico - Cuba's top ‍supplier after Venezuela cut off shipments in December - wasalso reviewing whether to continue sending oil amid growing fears it could face reprisals from the United States over the policy.

Trump has used tariff threats as a foreign policy tool throughout his second term in office. Cuba's president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, said this month that Washington had ‍no moral authority to force a deal on Cuba after Trump suggested the Communist-run island ‌should strike ​an agreement with the US.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

No to intervention in Cuba and Latin America – Sign the Cuba Solidarity Campaign statement

29th January 2026Leave a Commenton No to intervention in Cuba and Latin America – Sign the Cuba Solidarity Campaign statement

“Any attack against Cuba would be a flagrant violation of international law, the UN Charter and undermine regional peace and stability.”

By the Cuba Solidarity Campaign

Recent US military action against Venezuela, together with open threats made against other sovereign nations, including Cuba, has heightened concerns about peace, regional stability and respect for the UN Charter.

Our governments must publicly reaffirm their commitment to international law and oppose any threat or use of military force against Cuba and other sovereign nations.

Sign the Call for Peace and Sovereignty and say no to war and intervention.

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Call for Peace and Sovereignty:

We the undersigned express our grave concern at the escalating threat to peace and international law following recent US military action against Venezuela and at open threats made by senior US politicians against other sovereign nations, including Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and the autonomous territory of Greenland.

In this dangerous context, Cuba once again faces heightened threats to its sovereignty, security and right to self-determination. Decades of US hostility – including the ongoing economic blockade – have already caused immense harm to the Cuban people and have been repeatedly condemned by the international community at the United Nations. Cuba, like all sovereign nations, has the right to determine its own political, economic and social system, free from external interference and threats.

Any attack against Cuba would be a flagrant violation of international law, the UN Charter and undermine regional peace and stability.

We therefore call on the British government, European Union and wider international community to publicly:

• reaffirm their commitment to international law and respect for Cuba’s sovereignty
• oppose any threat of US military action against Cuba

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