Mexico will continue supplying Cuba with crude oil after the US seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro last weekend, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced, describing Mexican shipments in part as humanitarian aid.
Sheinbaum added that she sees Mexican oil as especially critical to the impoverished communist-run Cuba following Maduro’s capture.
“With the current situation in Venezuela, Mexico has become an important supplier,” she told reporters at her daily morning press conference on Wednesday. “Previously it was Venezuela, but it’s part of what has historically been sent.”
Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos has for decades sent oil to Cuba, and in 2024 it ramped up shipments by nearly 20 percent to average around 20,000 barrels per day that year. Parts of Sheinbaum’s leftist Morena party are especially sympathetic to Cuba’s communist party, which has increasingly struggled to meet the Caribbean island’s energy needs in recent years.
Sheinbaum explained that some of Mexico’s oil exports to Cuba are covered by contractual obligations.
“For many years, oil has been sent to Cuba for various reasons, some of which are contracts, some of which are humanitarian aid,” she said.
She added that during the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, oil was used to pay debts the Mexican government owed Cuba.
Mexico’s determination to continue sending oil to Cuba risks a clash with US President Donald Trump, who has suggested that Cuba’s government could soon collapse. Top Trump aides argue that a cutoff of Venezuelan oil sent to the island could hasten the demise of its government.
“Cuba has been a criminal state with mercenaries all over the world up to no good,” US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told broadcaster CNBC in an interview. “They get floated economically by free oil from Venezuela that won’t be coming anymore.”
Sheinbaum denied that more oil has been sent to Cuba in recent months, and she sidestepped a question from a reporter who asked if more or larger oil exports are planned going forward.
According to shipping reports and vessel movements tracked by Bloomberg, Mexico’s oil shipments to Cuba have not increased since last September, when Pemex sent 400,000 barrels. Another ship with the same amount of oil is expected this month.
Venezuela has been a longtime benefactor to Cuba, with whom it had an agreement to receive oil in exchange for doctors and security personnel. Trump has threatened to control Venezuelan oil exports, but it’s unclear how soon Cuba may be denied those supplies.
Mexico has also welcomed Cuban doctors in recent years, including during the pandemic. According to a report from newspaper El Universal, the Mexican government paid over 2 billion pesos ($111 million) between 2022 and 2025 for Cuban physicians.
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