Trump blindsided Mexico by threatening to tax Cuban oil, Mexico’s president says
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US President Donald Trump has turned a blind eye to Mexico with an executive order that threatens tariffs on any country that supplies Cuba with oil, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday.
Sheinbaum, speaking at a morning news conference in Tijuana, Mexico’s Baja California state, said Trump did not mention Cuba during their 40-minute phone call Thursday morning.
“We did not touch the subject of Cuba, and this evening [executive order] he came out,” he said.
The Mexican president said he has instructed his foreign affairs secretary to seek more information from the US State Department.
Trump signed an executive order, published Thursday evening, threatening to impose tariffs on any country that “directly or indirectly supplies oil to Cuba.” The executive order did not provide details on the size of the threatened tariffs.
Mexico has become the largest oil company in Cuba now that Venezuela’s oil industry has fallen under the control of the United States. This follows the military strikes at the beginning of this month where the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who is now facing drug and weapons charges in New York, was kidnapped.
Sheinbaum said the threats of a tax on oil exports to Cuba could cause a serious problem for the people on the island. The oil cut will have a negative impact on the operation of hospitals, electricity and food, he said.
“The imposition of taxes on the countries that supply oil to Cuba would cause a major humanitarian crisis,” said Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum said Cuba is currently “going through a difficult time” but acknowledged that it cannot put Mexico “at risk in terms of tariffs.”
Exports of Mexican oil to Cuba, through its state-owned oil company, fell from 17,000 barrels per day in the first nine months of 2025 to about 7,000 bpd this month, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, while the NPR report cites. Jorge Piñon, an expert at the University of Texas Energy Institute, said that about 20,000 bpd were sent to Cuba in the first nine months of last year.
Sheinbaum confirmed this week that Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the state oil company, recently canceled oil exports to Cuba.
Veronica Ayala, with the research group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, said the Sheinbaum government has been careless about its oil exports to Cuba. The Mexican president said that oil is being sent to Cuba as humanitarian aid and through Pemex agreements.
“What we have written is that all these exports are temporarily suspended,” said Ayala.
He said his organization has seen a decline in oil exports to Cuba since the fall of 2025, when U.S. lawmakers began making noise about a route to transport Mexican oil to Cuba.
Mexico has a long and deep history of support and friendship with Cuba, said Matías Gómez Léautaud, Latin America analyst with the Eurasia Group.
The Trump administration has put Mexico in a difficult position at a critical time – with the renegotiation of the continental trade agreement and bilateral security concerns about the drug trade on the table.
“So this situation may see a break, not just between Mexico and Cuba, but between the Mexico of tomorrow and the Mexico of yesterday,” he said.
