Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she has instructed the foreign ministry to get in touch with the State Department to learn about the extent of the recent executive order imposing tariffs on goods to countries who provide or sell oil to Cuba.
Speaking during her daily press conference, Sheinbaum reiterated that she didn’t speak with Donald Trump about the matter.
Trump’s order was announced late Thursday and is largely seen as targeting Mexico, one of the last remaining lifelines the Havana regime has in terms of energy.
Cuba relied on oil from Venezuela and Mexico, but shipments from the former stopped following the capture of authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, and the latter is seeing an impact as well after state-run oil company Pemex halted a shipment this month.
Sheinbaum said this week that her administration intends to continue sending oil to the country on humanitarian grounds. However, the tariffs could deter her administration from moving forward with the policy.
The Cuban regime slammed the U.S. over the order, with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Havana “condemns in the strongest terms the U.S.’s new escalation.”
“Now it is seeking to impose a total blockade to our country’s fuel supplies,” Rodriguez added. “The U.S. is also resorting to blackmail and coercion to try to get other countries to join its universally condemned blockade of Cuba and, should they refuse, are threatened with arbitrary and abusive tariffs that violate all free trade rules,” he added.
The development comes as a report from the Financial Times claimed that the country has less than a month worth of oil at current levels of demand and domestic production.
Citing data company Kpler, the outlet noted that the country has oil to last 15 to 20 days unless deliveries resume. “They have a major crisis on their hands” Jorge Piñon, an oil expert at the University of Texas told the outlet.
The country has only received less than 85,000 barrels this year, according to the FT. All came from a shipment on January 9, Kpler detailed. The figure adds to an estimated 460,000 barrels held in inventories at the beginning of the year.
Originally published on Latin Times
