US Bans Russian Oil Supplies To Cuba

Washington continued its blockade of the island, seeking regime change in the country.

After allowing other countries to buy Russian oil for a month, the US has made an exception for Cuba. Moscow sent tankers of oil and gas to the island this week, but Washington intends to continue its blockade of it, seeking a change in the country's leader.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published an exception to a license issued last week that allowed the purchase of Russian oil loaded on tankers until March 12. It spelled out a ban on its shipment to Cuba, as well as Iran, North Korea and the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea.

Moscow sent the Anatoly Kolodkin oil tanker with 728,000 barrels of oil and the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse tanker with 27,000 tons of Russian LNG to Cuba, the Financial Times reported Wednesday. Bloomberg confirmed, citing Kpler data, that the oil tanker is on its way to Cuba and is expected to arrive in late March.

After the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces, Cuba lost its oil supply from abroad. Venezuela had been selling it crude at deep discounts; Mexico was the other major supplier. But Donald Trump announced he would impose import duties against any country that tries to send Cuba oil.

The island's dire economic crisis is raging, and the oil embargo has only exacerbated it. On Monday, the entire island was left without electricity as a result of a "total failure" in the national power grid. Transportation in the country is practically inoperative, businesses have stopped, and people are not traveling to work.

Washington wants to replace the current president Miguel Diaz-Canel, believing that he is incapable of carrying out economic reforms for ideological reasons. At the same time, the White House has no plans to change the communist regime itself. But it expects the new, younger leader to be able to carry out structural reforms, including opening the Cuban economy to U.S. business.

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