Madrid/Cubans were hotly debating whether the new US measure of impose tariffs on countries That they deliver oil to the Island is good news that will end the regime or a punishment for the people who will suffer the consequences. That’s when the foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, arrived with his usual verbiage: “We condemn in the strongest terms the new escalation of the United States against Cuba. Now it is proposed to impose a total blockade on fuel supplies to our country,” he wrote on his X account.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs added: “To justify it, it relies on a long list of lies that attempt to present Cuba as a threat that it is not. Every day there is new evidence that the only threat to the peace, security and stability of the region, and the only malign influence is that exercised by the US Government against the nations and peoples of Our America, which it tries to subject to its dictates, strip away their resources, mutilate their sovereignty and deprive of their independence.”
Rodríguez denounced that the United States resorts “to blackmail and coercion, to try to get other countries to join its universally condemned blockade policy against Cuba, which, if they refuse, threatens with the imposition of arbitrary and abusive tariffs, in violation of all free trade regulations.” Thus he put an end to his argument, which at this time has accumulated more than 200 reactions for and against, but among which one is particularly interesting. “And besides condemning, what else is your regime going to do? Because they are running out of fuel.”
“And besides condemning, what else is your regime going to do? Because they are left with zero fuel”
At the moment there does not seem to be a plan in the Cuban Government, whose only mechanism available at the moment is rhetoric. “Having to resort to so much abuse against Cuba is the greatest recognition by the United States executioners of their own defeat. Long live Cuba and down with the criminal siege of the United States. We will resist, we will defend the peace that we conquered in the struggle. We will live and we will win!” wrote the second head of the Cuban mission in Mexico, Johana Tablada, in a tone similar to her minister’s tweets.
The president of the state agency Prensa Latina, Jorge Legañoa, has gone even further, who was precisely the first voice of the ruling party to speak out on Cuban television, in a special news report. “What is being sought? A genocide of the Cuban people is being sought and, if it materializes through the tariffs, the effect would be to paralyze electricity generation, transportation, industrial production, agricultural production, the availability of health services, the water supply,… In short, all spheres of life, the suffocation of the US Government,” he said.
Legañoa denied one by one all the accusations of the signed executive order by Donald Trump this Thursday. “Cuba is not a threat to national security and never has been,” he said. Next, he rejected the existence of Russian or Chinese facilities on the island, that there is cooperation with terrorism – he also accused the United States of harboring terrorists, using the late Luis Posada Carriles as an example – and that political opponents are persecuted and tortured.
The journalist described the new measure as “an act of aggression” and called on the international community to choose whether or not to join this blockade policy. “We wonder if the world will be governed by the use of force to impose the will of one State on another and force a third party to join,” he reflected.
“We wonder if the world will be governed by the use of force to impose the will of one State on another and force a third to join in”
Legañoa stressed that no country can survive without fossil energy and accused the United States of trying, after seven decades without success, to end a “legitimate system, of full sovereignty, social justice and promotion of peace and solidarity with the rest of the world.” “Let’s not be fooled by another blow from the empire,” he concluded.
Legañoa’s appeal to other countries has found its first response in China, which this Friday condemned the measure, considering that it violates Cuba’s sovereignty and deprives its population of its right to development. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun stated at a press conference that Beijing “firmly supports Cuba in safeguarding its sovereignty and national security,” and opposes “external interference” and “inhumane actions and even practices that deprive the Cuban people of their right to survival and development.” In addition, he reiterated his support for lifting the embargo and any pressure policy.
However, the response is not different from the statements made in previous days or from those he made about Maduro’s Venezuela at the time. This TuesdayGuo expressed himself in very similar terms when the new executive order was not yet known. “We ask the US side to stop depriving the Cuban people of their right to survival and development, to end the blockade and sanctions against Cuba,” he said, adding that China will continue to provide support to the island “within its capabilities.”
Eyes are now on Russia, which supplied about 6,000 barrels of fuel per day in 2026, according to the University of Texas Energy Institute. For the moment, the Kremlin has not commented, although the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vasili Nebenzia, did speak on a parallel issue: the options for the United States to achieve political change on the island in a similar way to what it achieved in Caracas. “In Venezuela, without a doubt, a betrayal took place. It is something that is talked about completely openly. Some of the senior officials, in fact, betrayed the president,” Nebenzia said in statements to Russian television. And he added: “That little act won’t work in Cuba.”
“In Venezuela, without a doubt, a betrayal took place. “That stunt will not work in Cuba”
The other focus is on Mexico, the main supplier of crude oil to the Island after Venezuela. This Thursday, before Trump’s measure was announced, the US president spoke with his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, in what he described as a “very productive” conversation about border issues and drug trafficking. “Mexico has a wonderful and very intelligent leader. They should be very happy with that!” said the president.
Sheinbaum, for his part, has been balancing for several days to avoid the issue before the press, which has asked him insistently about the cancellation of a shipment of Pemex crude oil that was due to arrive in Cuba at the end of January. The Mexican president maintained that it was a “sovereign” decision by the state company and that crude oil will continue to be sent based on the decisions of the company or, failing that, the Government for “humanitarian reasons.” In 2025, between 6,000 and 12,000 barrels per day from Mexico arrived on the island, depending on estimates, and although two weeks ago the US Secretary of Energy said that he would not pressure Mexico to suspend these exports, Trump’s latest statements go in the opposite direction.
“It looks like it won’t be able to survive. Cuba won’t be able to survive,” the US president said last night. When asked if he is trying to “smother” Cuba, he responded that the word is “very harsh,” but insisted that the island is “a failed nation.”
“You have to feel bad for Cuba because they have treated people very badly. We have many Cuban-Americans who were treated very badly and would like to return,” he said to close the topic.
