In some neighborhood of Havana, a Cuban mother prepares breakfast for her children, at dawn, in the dark. The country suffers constant blackouts. The milk he saved yesterday is no longer useful: he has been without electricity for more than twenty hours. On January 31, Cuba recorded the largest blackout in its history: 63 percent of the country was simultaneously left in the dark.
As the island sinks into its worst energy crisis since the so-called “Special Period” after the fall of the Soviet Union, Mexico maintains a curious generosity with Havana. The director of Pemex confirmed this week in the morning conference that the Cuban bill totals 1.4 billion dollars from 2023. “Of course they pay us!” exclaimed Víctor Rodríguez Padilla. But here Moreno’s arithmetic fails. After the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Cuba lost its main supplier of crude oil. Mexico began to fill that gap, becoming the largest oil exporter to the island in 2025.
Pemex simultaneously announced that starting in March it will drastically reduce its exports as part of the strategy to process all oil in national refineries. “The policy is that crude oil be for the benefit of Mexicans,” he stated. An interesting statement if it did not come with the commitment to continue selling to Cuba “if there is availability.”
The paradox is evident: if the objective is for each Mexican barrel to remain in national territory, why does Cuba receive preferential treatment? Shipments to the island represent 3.3 percent of total exports, not the “less than one percent” that Sheinbaum repeats. They exceed what is exported to all of Central and South America combined.
Oil diplomacy with Cuba has ideological roots that transcend economic logic. For decades, that solidarity had a symbolic cost. Today it has a financial cost and an unsustainable strategic inconsistency.
Cuba is going through economic collapse: its GDP contracted 11 percent between 2020 and 2024. Nine of its 16 thermoelectric plants are out of service. And here is the bitterest irony: Mexican crude oil does not solve the problem. Cuban refineries are so obsolete that they only process light oil, precisely the Istmo and Olmeca mixtures with the highest commercial value for Mexico. Former ambassador Ricardo Pascoe describes it bluntly: “It’s a lost gift.” Cuba has no real capacity for sustained repayment.
Meanwhile, Mexican refineries continue to fall short of the promised self-sufficiency. In December, the value of oil exports fell 61 percent. And Pemex canceled contracts with clients who pay at market prices to honor commitments to an island that, according to official figures, represents an irrelevant fraction of its operation.
The president insists: “Mexico is supportive.” But solidarity cannot be built on accounting inconsistencies or justified when public finances face their own tensions. If the energy policy is that every barrel is for Mexicans, let it be without ideological exceptions.
Mexican oil does not turn on the lights in Cuba. The island’s problem is not one of supply: it is one of infrastructure destroyed by six decades of centralized management. We continue to export ideological solidarity disguised as trade, subsidizing a cause that neither Russia nor China can support.
The Havana mother does not know about these debates. He only knows that the refrigerator is not working and that the night will be long. Another one.
