Trump’s Cuba oil tariff threat creates new diplomatic challenge for Mexico’s Sheinbaum

MEXICO CITY — President Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba has created a formidable new challenge for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in her efforts to balance Mexico’s interests with White House demands.

On Friday, Sheinbaum said Mexico would seek clarification from Washington to avoid a stark choice: suspend oil shipments to Cuba, which could trigger a humanitarian crisis on the island, or face new tariffs on Mexican goods exported to the United States.

Stopping oil deliveries to Cuba, she warned, could lead to a catastrophic scenario: a power cut to hospitals and homes, threatening medical care, food supplies and other essential services across the island, home to 11 million people.

However, the left-wing president indicated she would not risk imposing additional U.S. taxes on imports from Mexico, a country heavily dependent on cross-border trade. “We cannot put our country at risk in terms of tariffs,” Sheinbaum told reporters at his usual morning news conference.

For a year, Sheinbaum has pushed back against Washington’s plans to impose new punitive customs duties on Mexico. Her efforts have been mostly successful — and she has received warm praise from Trump — but a White House executive order targeting Cuba’s oil supplies poses a tough new test.

On Thursday, Trump issued an executive order establishing potential tariffs on goods from countries “that sell or supply oil to Cuba,” a measure that, Trump said, was intended to protect “the national security and foreign policy of the United States from the malign actions and policies of the Cuban regime.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced Trump’s decision on social media as a “fascist, criminal and genocidal” plan aimed at “asphyxiating” the Cuban economy, which is already struggling with power outages and a lack of gasoline, among other shortages.

Sheinbaum also made strenuous efforts to dissuade Trump from following through on his threats to deploy U.S. military assets against cartels in Mexico. She called any potential U.S. strike on Mexican territory a violation of Mexican sovereignty.

Mexican crude has become a new emergency for Cuba since the ouster this month of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose socialist government has long been Cuba’s main oil supplier. (Havana said 32 Cuban officers, members of Maduro’s security services, were killed during the operation.)

The fall of Maduro and the subsequent submission of the Venezuelan government to Washington led to an interruption in the supply of Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Meanwhile, U.S. imports of Venezuelan oil have soared.

Mexico has supplied Cuba with about 20,000 barrels of oil per day through much of 2025, said Jorge R. Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Texas. But shipments have declined significantly this year, apparently because of U.S. pressure.

“The taps are turned off,” Piñon said. “Sheinbaum walks a tightrope.”

Without imports, he said, Cuba faces a daily oil shortfall of about 60,000 barrels to meet its energy needs. Other potential sources for Cuba include the oil-exporting countries of Russia, Angola, Algeria and Brazil, Piñon said, but it is unclear whether any of those countries would be inclined to defy the White House and help bail out Cuba.

Mexico’s support for the Cuban government has long been a point of pride here, a sign of an independent U.S. foreign policy, particularly during the Cold War. Mexican leaders, including Sheinbaum, have repeatedly denounced Washington’s embargo on the island for more than half a century, calling it an illegal blockade that punishes ordinary Cubans, not the country’s communist elite.

It was from the Mexican coast that in 1956, Fidel Castro sailed to Cuba with Ernesto “Che” Guevara and other revolutionaries aboard the yacht Granma, launching an unlikely but ultimately successful armed rebellion to overthrow the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor — called Castro a “giant” and called Havana a “progressive” model of resistance to U.S. pressure.

But U.S. efforts to block Mexican oil exports to Cuba also reveal divisions within the Morena political bloc, founded by López Obrador.

Leftists in Morena criticized Washington’s attempt to suspend Mexican oil exports to Cuba. But the most conservative members of the ruling party urged caution.

Ricardo Sheffield, a prominent senator from Morena who was previously a member of the center-right National Action Party, called for a review of oil deals with Cuba. In a recent speech, he acknowledged “the relationship and the history that unites” Mexico and Cuba, but warned: “If we continue to give oil to Cuba, we will have more problems with our American neighbors.”

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.