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Mexico is the largest supplier of lipid to Cuba, an energy-strapped state that has agelong relied connected imports to conscionable request for petroleum products.
The value of imports from Mexico is adjacent much important present due to the fact that Cuba is nary longer receiving lipid from Venezuela owed to a U.S. blockade of lipid tankers successful the South American federation successful December and the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
However, determination is simply a anticipation that Mexico could halt sending lipid to the blackout-plagued, communist-run Caribbean land retired of a tendency not to upset the U.S., according to a study by Reuters.
Citing 3 “senior Mexican authorities sources,” the quality bureau reported connected Friday that the Sheinbaum medication is “reviewing whether to support sending lipid to Cuba amid increasing fears … that Mexico could look reprisals from the United States implicit the policy.”
Reuters wrote that Mexico’s “pivotal relation successful sending lipid to Cuba” has enactment the state “in Washington’s crosshairs,” noting that U.S. President Donald Trump “has stressed Cuba is ‘ready to fall'” and declared successful a Jan. 11 societal media station that “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!”
Separately, Politico reported connected Friday that “the Trump medication is weighing caller tactics to thrust authorities alteration successful Cuba, including imposing a full blockade connected lipid imports to the Caribbean country.”
The quality outlet said its reporting was based connected accusation from “three radical acquainted with the plan.”
Why is Mexico abruptly Cuba’s biggest lipid supplier?
Politico wrote that “no determination has been made connected whether to approve” a blockade connected lipid imports to Cuba — which would presumably instrumentality Mexico’s determination retired of its ain hands — but added that “it could beryllium among the suite of imaginable actions presented to President Donald Trump to unit the extremity of Cuba’s communist government.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum has said publically that Mexico volition proceed to nonstop lipid to Cuba, declaring past Wednesday that Mexico “will ever beryllium there” to enactment the land federation some with petroleum and humanitarian aid.
However, Reuters reported that the Mexican authorities sources said that the argumentation of sending lipid to Cuba is “under interior reappraisal arsenic anxiousness grows wrong Sheinbaum’s furniture that the shipments could antagonize Trump.”
Mexico is surely successful a tricky position. Mexican governments person agelong supported Cuba, and some Sheinbaum and her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, expressed their absorption to the long-standing U.S. embargo against the Caribbean nation. Now, however, the Sheinbaum medication is particularly wary astir angering the United States arsenic the USMCA escaped commercialized pact is up for reappraisal this twelvemonth and Trump has threatened to motorboat unilateral strikes connected cartels successful Mexican territory, thing that remains a anticipation contempt Sheinbaum’s repeated nationalist assertions that specified a determination won’t happen.
“There is simply a increasing fearfulness that the United States could instrumentality unilateral enactment connected our territory,” said 1 of Reuters’ Mexican authorities sources.
#Petróleo 🇲🇽🇨🇺 Sheinbaum aceptó que México sigue enviando crudo a Cuba por razones humanitarias, bajo una lógica de apoyo determination y contratos establecidos. #Periodistas pic.twitter.com/1bAtAxeATd
— Periodistas Oaxaca (@PeriodistasOax) January 22, 2026
Reuters reported that it “remains unclear what eventual determination the Mexican authorities mightiness take” with respect to sending lipid to Cuba “with sources saying a implicit halt, a simplification and a continuation successful afloat are each inactive connected the table.”
Citing its 3 sources, the quality bureau besides wrote that wrong the Mexican authorities “there is simply a content that Washington’s strategy of cutting disconnected Cuba’s lipid could propulsion the state into an unprecedented humanitarian disaster, triggering wide migration to Mexico.”
“For this reason, they added, immoderate successful the authorities are pushing to support immoderate substance supplies to the island,” Reuters reported.
The quality bureau said that it was told by Sheinbaum’s bureau that Mexico “‘has ever been successful solidarity with the radical of Cuba.'” The president’s bureau besides told Reuters that “shipping lipid to Cuba and a abstracted statement to wage for the services of Cuban doctors ‘are sovereign decisions.'”
Reuters: Trump questioned Sheinbaum astir lipid shipments to Cuba successful caller call
Citing 2 of its sources, Reuters reported that “Trump questioned Sheinbaum astir crude and substance shipments to Cuba and the beingness of thousands of Cuban doctors successful Mexico” during the leaders’ Jan. 12 call.
Again citing its Mexican authorities sources, Reuters reported that “Sheinbaum responded that the shipments are ‘humanitarian aid,'” — adjacent though Mexico has paid for astatine slightest immoderate of the lipid it sends to Cuba — “and that the doctors woody ‘is successful afloat compliance’ with Mexican law.”
The sources added that “Trump did not straight impulse Mexico to halt the lipid deliveries,” Reuters reported.
The telephone betwixt Sheinbaum and Trump came 4 days aft the U.S. president said that the United States was “going to commencement present hitting land, with respect to the cartels,” a remark that accrued expectations that a U.S. subject onslaught connected a cartel people successful Mexico would occur.
After her speech with Trump, Sheinbaum said that U.S. subject enactment successful Mexico could beryllium ruled out.
Mexico’s president said that successful the call, Trump “understood” her presumption connected subject interventionism. (@Claudiashein/X)Still, Reuters reported that its 3 sources said that Mexican officials are “increasingly acrophobic astir a increasing beingness of U.S. Navy drones implicit the Gulf of Mexico since December.”
“Local media person reported, utilizing flight-tracking data, that astatine slightest 3 U.S. Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton drones person conducted a twelve flights implicit the Bay of Campeche, astir pursuing the way taken by tankers carrying Mexican substance to Cuba,” the quality bureau wrote.
“These aforesaid reconnaissance craft were spotted disconnected the Venezuelan seashore successful December, days earlier the U.S. onslaught connected the South American country.”
Krauze: Mexico can’t enactment the ‘Cuban dictatorship’ and expect ‘goodwill’ from US
In an sentiment nonfiction published successful The Washington Post past Thursday nether the header “Sheinbaum’s Cuba argumentation is investigating Washington’s patience,” writer and columnist León Krauze noted that helium was precocious told by Republican Party congressman Carlos A. Giménez that “the Mexican government’s invocation of humanism” to warrant its lipid shipments to Cuba ‘is an excuse President Sheinbaum is utilizing to assistance Cuba prolong its authorities due to the fact that they lucifer ideologically.'”
Krauze besides cited Giménez arsenic saying that Mexico is “propping up a dictatorship that denies its radical their quality rights.”
“Indeed,” the writer wrote successful WaPo, “funneling lipid into Cuba does not look to payment the Cuban people.”
“Cuba continues to endure chronic nutrient shortages, blackouts and appalling poverty, and governmental repression has intensified. Mexico’s lipid is lone helping to entrench the brutal regime,” Krauze wrote.
Later successful his column, helium asserted that “for amended oregon worse, Sheinbaum volition soon beryllium forced to choose.”
“Amid Venezuela’s collapse, Cuba’s economical free-fall and broader geopolitical tensions — particularly successful the Western Hemisphere — Mexico cannot openly prolong the Cuban dictatorship portion simultaneously expecting goodwill oregon flexibility from Washington,” Krauze wrote.
He besides wrote that “the Sheinbaum medication whitethorn beryllium downplaying the grade of the enactment it is providing to Cuba.”
“According to reporting by the anti-corruption watchdog Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción, Pemex past twelvemonth shipped astir $3 cardinal worthy of oil to Cuba, portion officially reporting lone astir $400 cardinal to the United States,” Krauze wrote.
With reports from Reuters and Politico
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