Lawmakers from US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party are putting pressure on Mexico for becoming the biggest exporter of oil to Cuba.
According to information from the Financial Times newspaper, in 2025, Mexico sent a daily average of 12,284 barrels of oil to Cuba, which corresponded to 44% of the island’s crude oil imports, while Venezuela exported around 9,528 barrels per day (34% of Cuban imports).
According to the British newspaper, Mexican oil exports to Cuba grew 56% last year compared to 2024, while Venezuelan exports, once the main source of the commodity for Cubans, have fallen 63% since 2023.
Mexico’s role as a supplier gains even more importance in the eyes of Washington due to the capture of the then Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro by American forces on the 3rd.
Trump stated that there will no longer be any shipment of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and told the Castro regime to make an agreement with the USA “before it is too late”.
This Tuesday (27), in an interview with Fox News, Republican congressman Carlos Gimenez said that the Cuban dictatorship “was already, even before this action against Maduro, probably at the most fragile point in the last 65 years” and that the fall of the dictator partner “only weakens them even more”.
“My only concern is that it appears that Mexico is now trying to support them. So the oil they received from Venezuela is being replaced by Mexican oil,” Gimenez said.
The Republican deputy said that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, from the left-wing Morena party, is a “Marxist”. “It doesn’t matter that Miguel Díaz-Canel’s regime [em Cuba] has repressed and oppressed its people for 65 years, as long as it has the right ideology”, said the parliamentarian.
Sending oil to Cuba could put pressure on Sheinbaum in negotiations to review the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, which will take place in July.
This Tuesday, Sheinbaum confirmed at a press conference that the planned shipment of a cargo of oil to Cuba had been suspended, after international agencies published news on the matter.
However, the president did not discuss the reasons for this suspension – last week, the Reuters agency said that Mexico was reviewing oil exports to Cuba due to fear of suffering retaliation from the United States.
“The decision when [o petróleo] is sent and how it is sent is a sovereign decision and is determined by the [estatal mexicana] Pemex based on contracts — or, in other cases, by the government, as a humanitarian decision to send it in certain circumstances,” Sheinbaum said on Tuesday.
American Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, also from the Republican Party, celebrated the suspension of cargo shipment.
“Mexico is starting to change course and is doing the right thing. This is great news and a clear sign that the end of the Cuban regime is near,” said the congresswoman on social media.
“Last week, I directly asked President Sheinbaum to stop financing the dictatorship with free oil,” Salazar added.
