Rubio Says "There's No Oil Blockade on Cuba, Per Se"

(MENAFN) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back Tuesday against accusations that Washington has imposed an oil blockade on Cuba, even as existing US policy explicitly threatens tariffs against any nation that supplies fuel to the island.

"There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per se," he told reporters at the White House.

Rubio attributed Cuba's worsening fuel shortages not to US policy, but to a shift in Venezuelan energy subsidies that had long propped up the Cuban economy.

"Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela, used to give them a bunch of free oil. They would take, like, 60% of that oil and resell it for cash. It wouldn't even go to benefit the people. So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided, I mean, the Venezuelans have decided, we're not giving you free oil anymore," he added.

The remarks stand in contrast to the reality on the ground. Cuba is currently mired in a severe fuel crisis following President Donald Trump's decision to impose an oil embargo on Jan. 29 — an executive order that explicitly threatens US tariffs against any country "that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba." The island has been grappling with widespread power outages ever since.

Trump has repeatedly signaled aggressive intentions toward Cuba, declaring the island "next" once military operations against Iran conclude, and predicting the communist-run government would collapse "soon." On Friday, he elaborated on what that intervention might look like.

"On the way back from Iran, we'll have one of our big, maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world, we'll have that come in, stop about 100 yards offshore," he said Friday. "They'll say 'thank you very much. We give up.'"

On a separate diplomatic front, Rubio is set to meet with Catholic Pope Leo this week in a visit the State Department described as aimed at advancing bilateral relations between Washington and the Holy See, amid friction stemming from the pontiff's public criticism of Trump's military campaign against Iran.

Rubio indicated that humanitarian aid to Cuba — potentially channeled through the Catholic Church — would feature prominently in his discussions with the pope.

"We're willing to give more humanitarian aid to Cuba, by the way, distribute it through the church, but the Cuban regime has to allow us to do it," he said. "They won't allow us to give their own people more humanitarian aid, and we're willing to do it through the church. So there's a lot to talk about."

MENAFN06052026000045017169ID1111074464