Trump says Mexico will ‘cease’ sending oil to Cuba

US President Donald Trump said Monday that Mexico would stop sending oil to Cuba, which is already struggling after supplies from its traditional provider Venezuela dried up following the fall of Nicolas Maduro.

“It’s a failed nation. Mexico is going to cease sending them oil,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about Cuba.

For years, until Maduro’s ouster, the Cuban economy spluttered along on cheap supplies of Venezuelan oil.

The end of Mexican supplies, too, would significantly deepen what is already Cuba’s most serious economic crisis since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

There was no immediate response from Mexico to Trump’s comments.

The US president has approved punitive tariffs against countries supplying oil to Cuba.

The decree effectively forced Cuba’s partners to choose between trade with the world’s largest economy or with an impoverished island of 11 million people.

Mexico has been reluctant to cut supplies, with President Claudia Sheinbaum warning of a “far-reaching humanitarian crisis directly affecting hospitals, food supplies, and other basic services for the Cuban people.”

But the United States is Mexico’s largest trade partner, and tariffs could damage the already slow-growing economy.

While reiterating her “everlasting solidarity” with the Cuban people, Sheinbaum added, “We don’t want to put our country at risk in terms of tariffs.”

She also said that during a phone conversation Thursday with Trump, the two leaders “never discussed” the issue of oil with Cuba.

In his Oval Office remarks, Trump again said his administration was in talks with Cuba’s leaders.

“I think we are pretty close, but we are dealing with the Cuban leaders right now,” he said, without elaborating.

A senior Cuban diplomat on Monday said there were contacts between the two countries, but no formal talks.

“Today we cannot talk about having a dialogue table with the United States, but it is true that there have been communications between the two governments,” vice foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told AFP.