{"id":200255,"date":"2026-02-13T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mexican-ships-arrive-in-cuba-with-humanitarian-cargo-amid-us-oil-blockade-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:01:09","slug":"mexican-ships-arrive-in-cuba-with-humanitarian-cargo-amid-us-oil-blockade-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mexican-ships-arrive-in-cuba-with-humanitarian-cargo-amid-us-oil-blockade-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican ships arrive in Cuba with humanitarian cargo amid US oil blockade – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Sheinbaum called for dialogue and pledged to send more supplies as soon as the two ships return to Mexico.<\/em>
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Two Mexican ships bearing humanitarian aid have docked in the harbour of Cuba\u2019s capital Havana, as the United States continues its efforts to cut the island off from outside fuel supplies.
On Thursday, pedestrians on Havana\u2019s seawall watched as the ships, one of which was the Papaloapan, unloaded white pallets on shore.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the delivery in her morning news conference, promising that more help was on the way.
\u201cWe are sending different forms of help, different forms of support,\u201d Sheinbaum said. \u201cToday, the ships arrive. When they return, we are going to send more support of a different type.\u201d
She also described her country\u2019s role as \u201copening the doors for dialogue to develop\u201d between Cuba and the US, but she insisted that maintaining Cuba\u2019s sovereignty would be paramount among her priorities.<\/p>\n

Since January, the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to cut off the oil supplies that power Cuba\u2019s energy grid and other critical infrastructure.
The campaign is part of a long-running series of sanctions imposed by the US on the Caribbean island nation, stretching back to the Cold War.
But the latest effort, under Trump, has experts at the United Nations warning of an imminent humanitarian \u201ccollapse\u201d in Cuba, as oil supplies dwindle.
The oil embargo began on January 3, when Trump authorised a US military operation to attack Venezuela and abduct its then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores.
Venezuela has long been a close ally of Cuba, not to mention a major oil supplier. But in the aftermath of Maduro\u2019s abduction, Trump announced<\/a> that much of the economic exchange between the two countries would cease.
\u201cCuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided \u2018Security Services\u2019 for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE,\u201d Trump wrote<\/a> on January 11 on his Truth Social account.
\u201cTHERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA \u2013 ZERO!\u201d
He also indicated that he expected<\/a> Cuba\u2019s communist government to crumble in the wake of Maduro\u2019s removal.
\u201cCuba is ready to fall,\u201d he told reporters on board Air Force One on January 4. \u201cCuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They\u2019re not getting any of it.\u201d
Trump has repeatedly pushed Cuba to \u201cmake a deal\u201d to resolve the impasse, though it is unclear what such an agreement would include.<\/p>\n

But when weeks passed without a negotiated solution, the Trump administration upped the ante. On January 29, it declared<\/a> the situation in Cuba a \u201cnational emergency\u201d for the US.
It accused<\/a> the government in Havana of being an \u201cextraordinary threat\u201d and supporting \u201chostile actors, terrorism, and regional instability that endanger American security and foreign policy\u201d.
Paired with this emergency declaration was the announcement that the US would impose tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba, whether directly or indirectly.
That put Mexico on the defensive. Mexico, like Venezuela, was among the regional trading partners that supplied Cuba with oil.
But it is also one of the top trading partners for the US. As many as 80 percent of Mexico\u2019s exports go to its northern neighbour, and the two countries are currently part of a regional free-trade agreement.
Sheinbaum has nevertheless criticised Trump\u2019s oil blockade against Cuba, calling the situation \u201cunfair\u201d.
Cuba has long suffered from economic instability, which its government blames on the US sanctions regime. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the island saw shortages of basic supplies, including fuel, sparking one of the island\u2019s largest exoduses in recent history.
Still, the new Trump-era restrictions on fuel exports to Cuba have brought the island to the brink of a new humanitarian crisis.
In early February, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the situation on the island had grown dire. Already, blackouts are a chronic problem.
\u201cI can tell you that the secretary-general is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, and if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet,\u201d Dujarric said.
The US has also announced this month it will supply $6m in humanitarian aid<\/a> to Cuba, though it said it would avoid disbursing the funds through the Cuban government by going through the Catholic Church instead.
As the two Mexican ships unloaded their humanitarian cargo on Thursday, locals told international news agencies they were grateful for the show of support.
Ediberto Rodriguez, a 65-year-old Havana resident, told the news outlet Reuters that the delivery was an \u201cunforgettable gesture\u201d from an ally.
\u201cMexico hasn\u2019t abandoned us,\u201d he said. \u201cEven with pressure from a global superpower [the United States], they weren\u2019t afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Al Jazeera English:<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Sheinbaum called for dialogue and pledged to send more supplies as soon as the two ships return to Mexico.ShareSaveTwo Mexican ships bearing humanitarian aid have docked in the harbour of Cuba\u2019s capital Havana, as the United States continues its efforts to cut the island off from outside fuel supplies.On Thursday, pedestrians on Havana\u2019s seawall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}