{"id":205906,"date":"2026-03-30T21:11:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-appears-to-relax-de-facto-oil-blockade-on-cuba-as-russian-oil-tanker-arrives-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:11:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:11:56","slug":"trump-appears-to-relax-de-facto-oil-blockade-on-cuba-as-russian-oil-tanker-arrives-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-appears-to-relax-de-facto-oil-blockade-on-cuba-as-russian-oil-tanker-arrives-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump appears to relax de facto oil blockade on Cuba as Russian oil tanker arrives – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president says he has \u2018no problem\u2019 with countries sending oil to Cuba, in potential lifeline to island nation
Middle East crisis \u2013 live updates<\/a>
Donald Trump appears to have relaxed his blockade on fuel-starved Cuba after a Russian tanker reached the Caribbean island carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude.
Russia\u2019s transport ministry said the Anatoly Kolodkin tanker arrived at the port of Matanzas on Cuba\u2019s northern coast on Monday to deliver the crisis-hit country\u2019s first such cargo in more than three months.
\u201cRussia considers it its duty not to stand aside, but to provide the necessary assistance to our Cuban friends,\u201d the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Monday.
Peskov said \u201cthe issue\u201d had been raised \u201cwith our American partners\u201d in advance.
Speaking on Sunday, Trump, who has been trying to pressure Cuba\u2019s communist regime by denying it access to fuel, indicated he had opted against blocking the arrival of the tanker, which left the Baltic port of Primorsk in early March. \u201cIf a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem, whether it\u2019s Russia or not,\u201d the US president told reporters on Air Force One.
Cuba\u2019s 10 million citizens have been repeatedly plunged into darkness in recent months<\/a> as Trump has intensified his campaign against its leaders \u2013 first by blocking Venezuelan oil deliveries to the island after the abduction of its president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, then by discouraging others such as Mexico and Brazil from filling the gap.
Critics say the result has been a deepening humanitarian crisis on the already economically troubled island, which has forced schools and universities to shut, thrown the health care system into chaos and ravaged the tourism industry. Petrol shortages have left streets eerily quiet, with one ingenious mechanic reportedly<\/a> modifying his Fiat engine so it can run on charcoal.
\u201cWe haven\u2019t received a drop of fuel for nearly four months,\u201d Cuba\u2019s president, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, complained<\/a> in an interview last week with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. He blamed Trump\u2019s actions on US \u201canger\u201d at the failure of decades-long \u201cyearning \u2026 to seize control of Cuba\u201d since the 1959 revolution.
Behind the scenes, negotiations between high-ranking US and Cuban officials have been taking place, with the Trump administration<\/a> seemingly keen to identify a malleable successor to D\u00edaz-Canel similar to Venezuela\u2019s acting president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez.
Rodr\u00edguez, who was vice-president under Maduro and took power after his rendition to the US, has overseen a major thaw in Washington-Caracas relations and ordered a series of major economic concessions. On Monday, the state department announced the US embassy was reopening in Caracas, seven years after it closed, and hailed the start of \u201ca new chapter in our diplomatic presence in Venezuela\u201d.
One of the people touted as a possible \u201cDelcy-esque\u201d figure in Cuba is Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Castro, the millennial grandson of the 94-year-old former Communist party chief Ra\u00fal Castro. Another is Cuba\u2019s deputy prime minister and foreign trade and investment minister, Oscar P\u00e9rez-Oliva Fraga<\/a>, who recently announced that Cubans living abroad would be allowed to invest back home in an effort to create \u201ca dynamic business environment\u201d.
On Sunday, Trump denied Russia\u2019s oil delivery would provide salvation for Cuba\u2019s embattled leaders. \u201cCuba\u2019s finished. They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it\u2019s not going to matter,\u201d the US president said, adding that he favoured allowing the delivery \u201cbecause the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things\u201d.<\/p>\n

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

US president says he has \u2018no problem\u2019 with countries sending oil to Cuba, in potential lifeline to island nationMiddle East crisis \u2013 live updatesDonald Trump appears to have relaxed his blockade on fuel-starved Cuba after a Russian tanker reached the Caribbean island carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude.Russia\u2019s transport ministry said the Anatoly Kolodkin tanker arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205907,"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-205906","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\/205906","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=205906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}