MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico will pursue a diplomatic path after President Donald Trump moved to penalize countries that supply oil to Cuba, raising the risk of trade blowback for Mexico while deepening the island’s energy strain, Jan. 31, 2026.
Sheinbaum said she has instructed Mexico’s foreign minister to contact the U.S. State Department for clarity on how the policy would be applied and whether Mexico could avoid becoming a target of the new Cuba oil tariffs threat, according to a Reuters report. “We do not want tariffs on Mexico, but we will always look for diplomatic channels to seek solidarity with Cuba,” she said at her daily morning news conference.
Cuba oil tariffs put Mexico in a bind
Mexico has increasingly become a critical fuel supplier for Cuba as other flows have tightened, leaving Sheinbaum’s government juggling competing priorities: maintaining its long-standing posture of support for Havana while protecting an economy heavily dependent on exports to the United States.
Sheinbaum warned that abruptly cutting off shipments could trigger “a far-reaching humanitarian crisis” in Cuba, hitting transportation, hospitals and access to food, Reuters reported. She added: “Our interest is that the Cuban people don’t suffer.”
Cuba is already enduring frequent blackouts and fuel scarcity, and residents fear the latest Cuba oil tariffs threat will worsen daily life. The Associated Press reported from Havana that drivers lined up for fuel as anger spread over the prospect of tighter restrictions, with one street vendor saying, “In the end, it’s the people who suffer … not the governments.”
What the Cuba oil tariffs order does
The White House said Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and creating a process to impose additional tariffs on imports from any country that “directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba,” according to a White House fact sheet. The administration framed the move as a national security and foreign policy response to what it described as Cuba’s support for hostile actors and regional instability.
In practical terms, the new Cuba oil tariffs framework is designed to pressure third countries by threatening tariffs on their goods entering the United States if they continue supplying oil to the island. A separate Reuters account of the executive order said the measure did not specify tariff rates or single out countries, but it escalates Washington’s pressure campaign against Cuba as it seeks to further choke off the island’s fuel lifelines.
Cuban officials have rejected the policy as coercive and unlawful. Reuters reported that Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called the tariff threat a violation of international law, while Cuban state media warned it could paralyze electricity generation, agricultural production, water supply and health services.
How this dispute has been building over time
Mexico’s oil relationship with Cuba has grown in fits and starts, and the latest Cuba oil tariffs threat lands on top of that volatile history. In 2024, a Pemex affiliate exported about 20,100 barrels a day of crude and 2,700 barrels a day of oil products to Cuba, worth about $600 million, according to a May 2025 Reuters report citing Pemex filings.
But by late 2025, Cuba’s oil imports from Mexico had fallen sharply as supplies tightened and payment challenges mounted, Reuters reported, with imports down to roughly 5,000 barrels a day in the first 10 months of the year, according to a November 2025 Reuters report based on shipping data and documents.
The broader U.S.-Cuba standoff has also remained a persistent backdrop. In 2023, the U.N. General Assembly again voted overwhelmingly to urge an end to the decades-old U.S. embargo, a nonbinding action opposed only by the United States and Israel, according to a Reuters report from that vote.
For now, Mexico’s strategy is to seek clarity and potential off-ramps before the Cuba oil tariffs threat hardens into specific, country-by-country penalties. The immediate question for Mexico’s exporters and policymakers is whether Washington will formally identify Mexico as a supplier subject to tariffs — and, if so, how steep those tariffs could be.
