AP Explains: What impact would Trump’s order to punish countries that sell oil to Cuba have?

HAVANA (AP) — Relying on his tough narrative against Cuba, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would impose tariffs on countries that dare to sell or send oil to the Caribbean nation.

The threat fell like a bucket of cold water on the streets of the country where many ordinary citizens are already greatly affected by a deep economic crisis.

Some experts even warn that the measure could be internally so serious as to cause a “humanitarian crisis.”

What does Trump’s executive order say?

The document establishes the imposition of a tariff on goods from countries that “directly or indirectly” supply Cuba with “any oil,” thus blocking the island’s possibilities of obtaining the vital fuel to drive its economy.

The US president’s argument is based on the fact that the Caribbean nation “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat” to “the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” which is why the president declared a “national emergency” with respect to said alleged danger.

According to official figures, Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it needs, but given the technical conditions, this can barely be used for the eight large thermoelectric plants, obsolete facilities – with more than 30 years of use; The rest is generated by smaller plants that consume diesel, which must be imported. The government has had a nascent solar energy program reinforced since last year.

International experts estimate that until the beginning of the month, when Venezuela still sent its crude oil to the island —new shipments are unknown—and by virtue of a close commercial and ideological proximity, Cuba received about 35,000 barrels per day from the South American country and 5,500 barrels per day from Mexico, adding 7,500 barrels per day from Russia.

Even so, blackouts have already occurred for the last three years with cuts lasting more than eight hours, affecting the water supply and disrupting the lives of Cubans who mostly depend on light for cooking.

Dramatic impact: a humanitarian crisis

“This is devastating because the Cuban economy has been working at a minimum and by announcing this order (Trump) is using a more lethal weapon than different forms of military action because the impact is widespread,” economist Arturo López Levy, researcher at the Institute of Comparative Regional Studies at the University of Denver, told The Associated Press.

“It is not difficult to predict a significant increase in migration and those who have advocated for this policy (must) see that a humanitarian crisis is being created here,” said López Levy, alarmed. “This path leads (the) Cuban population to conditions of hunger because if there is no oil, there is not even a way to move food to the cities.”

Cuba had a 15% drop in its Gross Domestic Product in the last six years, a multifactorial crisis produced by the paralysis of the COVID-19 pandemic. a radical increase in US sanctions and an internal financial reform that triggered inflation.

Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at the American University of Washington, for his part highlighted that in the end “fuel is horizontal” to all sectors of society and nothing moves without it, from transportation and locomotives, to irrigation or industry.

Help from friends.

What several experts consulted by the AP question is how long the battered economy could last without oil supplies.

“The question we have and there is no answer is the number of days that Cuba has fuel available,” said Jorge Piñon, of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas. “This is worse than a hurricane approaching Cuba,” added the specialist.

Piñon considered that after the departure of Venezuela from the supply equation and the pressure that Mexico is receiving to stop providing crude oil to the island from the United States, there is hardly any Russia left.

China, another friend of the island, is not an oil producer – and the credits would be of no use – although there are among Cuba’s historical allies – and they are producers – Algeria, Angola and eventually Brazil, which has not spoken out, Piñon reflected.

What does Cuba say?

The reaction of the authorities and media on the island was immediate and the first thing they highlighted is that there is no evidence that the small nation – of barely nine million inhabitants –, beyond its ideological distance from the American political model, is really a “threat” to the neighboring country.

“Under a mendacious pretext devoid of arguments, sold by those who engage in politics and enrich themselves at the expense of the suffering of our people, President Trump intends to suffocate the Cuban economy,” Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on his X account.

Furthermore, officials emphasized that Trump sought to put the governments of third countries in the position of having to choose sides.

On the streets along with some expressions of nationalism over the harm caused by a foreign country, many citizens worried about the impact on their lives.

“It is an unfair measure by this president, he is half crazy and stubborn,” Eddy Porto, a 70-year-old street vendor, told the AP. “What is our fault… for that ambition that (Trump) has for power?

________

Correspondent Dánica Coto contributed to this report

________

Follow Andrea Rodríguez on X: https://x.com/ARodriguezAP