U.S. President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba, part of an escalating a pressure campaign to choke off Cuban access to oil.
The move, authorized by an executive order under a national emergency declaration, stopped short of specifying tariff rates or singling out any countries whose products could face U.S. tariffs, reports Reuters.
A White House statement cited Cuba’s ties to hostile powers to explain the new tariff policy, citing the Cuban government’s alleged ties to Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah. (Guardian)
Cuba’s state-run media warned the order threatened to paralyze electricity generation, agricultural production, water supply and health services on an island already suffering a crushing economic crisis.
The Financial Times reports Cuba has enough oil for 15 to 20 days at the current rate of usage, and would have to introduce rationing if new shipments don’t come in.
In response to a query from a reporter whether Trump was trying to “choke off” Cuba, the U.S. president responded: “The word ‘choke off’ is awfully tough,” Trump said. “I’m not trying to, but, it looks like it’s something that’s just not going to be able to survive.” (Associated Press)
With the U.S. determined to choke off supplies and the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean — allegedly to stop alleged drug smuggling by sea — the U.S. administration had considered imposing an oil blockade against Cuba. The Trump administration has to date seized seven sanctioned oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, though experts say blockading legitimate shipments to Cuba could be considered a violation of international law, reports the Washington Post.
Mexican Oil in the Spotlight
Since the U.S. has cut off Venezuelan shipments of oil to Cuba, Mexico has become the country’s largest oil supplier, though the Sheinbaum administration said the volume of shipments has not increased.
This week she insisted oil shipments would continue, but also that a shipment from Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, due this week had been cancelled. Sheinbaum has been arguing for weeks that the oil shipments are of two types: humanitarian aid and contracts signed by Pemex with the Cuban government, reports El País.
This week Sheinbaum attempted to separate business dealings from emergency aid. “The humanitarian aid will continue, as it does to other countries. Mexico has always shown solidarity with the entire world. They are sovereign decisions,” she commented at her morning press conference. By making this distinction, the president has raised further questions about the Mexican crude oil being shipped to the island, according to El País.
Trump and Sheinbaum spoke by phone yesterday morning. Sheinbaum said they did not discuss Cuba. “We didn’t address the issue of Cuba,” Sheinbaum said, adding that Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary had discussed with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it was “very important” for Mexico to maintain its humanitarian aid to Cuba and Mexico was willing to serve as an intermediary between the U.S. and Cuba. (Associated Press)
Demands from Washington to fully terminate Mexico’s oil assistance to Cuba will be hard for the Sheinbaum administration to comply with, “for historical, ideological, and political reasons, likely producing another point of bilateral tension,” according to a report by the Inter-American Dialogue
The pressure on Mexico regarding Cuban oil shipments comes as the Sheinbaum administration grapples to balance domestic demands with U.S. pressure on security and trade issues.
“In recent weeks, high-level exchanges between the United States and Mexico have underscored a shift in how Washington defines progress on security cooperation, with U.S. officials increasingly emphasizing the need for “tangible results,” including the prosecution of politicians with cartel ties,” reports the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These signals arrive amid heightened debate over the possibility and consequences of unilateral U.S. action in Mexico, as well as growing concern about how security dynamics may intersect with the upcoming United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) review.”
Yesterday Sheinbaum reiterated that operations on Mexican soil are always carried out by Mexican forces, in response to questions surrounding the case of a Canadian accused of drug trafficking, who was recently sent to the U.S. to face charges, reports the Associated Press.
Costa Rica Presidential Elections Sunday
Twenty candidates are competing for Costa Rica’s presidency in elections on Sunday. Laura Fernández of the ruling Sovereign People’s Party is the frontrunner.
Latest polls show Fernandez at or around 40%, the amount needed to avoid a runoff in April, while her closest contenders in the 20-person race are polling in the single digits. (Reuters)
A political scientist, Fernández led the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy from 2022 to 2025 and briefly served President Rodrigo Chaves’ chief of staff.
In a campaign dominated by security concerns, Fernández has vowed to champion tough policies to combat a surge in crime fueled by drug trafficking in the country. (Reuters)
Costa Rica, long considered an oasis of peace — it has no military — in a region afflicted by high levels of violence, has seen record levels of murders in recent years as it becomes a growing hotspot for drug cocaine trafficking.
Costa Rica’s highest homicide rates have ocurred under the current government, but “Chaves has simultaneously been able to shirk any blame for the violence — he points to a permissive judiciary and weak predecessors — and attract support with tough-on-crime talk,” reports the Associated Press.
Costa Rica has already begun implementing harsh anti-crime tactics, inspired by neighbor El Salvador, reports InSight Crime, pointing to a new prison modeled on the infamous infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and inaugurated by Nayib Bukele earlier this month.
“Chaves’ confrontational style — with the press, the opposition, the judiciary — has drawn followers. Chaves has benefited from a thoroughly discredited opposition, beset by corruption and seemingly unable to regain its footing in the face of Chaves’ new style of Costa Rican politics,” according to AP.
Venezuela Opens Oil Sector to Privatization
Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization, less than two hours after the National Assembly — headed by her brother Jorge Rodríguez — approved it.
The move reverses a core a tenet of the Chavista movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.
The new hydrocarbons law promises to give private companies control over oil production and sales, ease taxes and allow for independent arbitration of disputes, while largely maintaining state control over oil production.
The new law stipulates that even when they are minority partners in joint ventures with PDVSA, private companies may exercise “technical and operational management” directly, breaking with the previous rule that required state control over operational decisions. It also provides for a possible reduction in royalty payments to the regime from 30% to zero. (Guardian)
Venezuela’s oil policy reversal is further evidence of how “the Trump administration has returned to an era of gunboat diplomacy, in which the United States has wielded its military superiority to coerce Latin American nations into yielding to Washington’s priorities,” reports the New York Times.
Nonetheless, experts say the text lacks clarity and that the changes, while welcome, are insufficient to deliver the reforms sought by the U.S. as it attempts to revive Venezuela’s battered oil industry, reports the Guardian.
Simultaneously U.S. Department of Treasury officially began to ease punishing economic sanctions on Venezuelan oil, which were imposed by the first Trump administration, and expanded the ability of U.S. energy companies to operate in the the country, reports the Associated Press.
The Treasury Department, which previously required U.S. firms to apply for limited individual exemptions from sanctions to work with Venezuela’s state-run oil company, announced a general license permitting U.S. companies to buy, sell, transport and refine Venezuelan oil, among other activities, reports the Washington Post.
The moves by both governments yesterday are paving the way for yet another radical geopolitical and economic shift in Venezuela, according to AFP.
Rodríguez spoke by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, yesterday.
In a cabinet meeting, Trump said big U.S. oil companies were already on the ground in Venezuela carrying out site assessments for potential operations. He said they are “scouting it out and picking their locations, and they’ll be bringing back tremendous wealth for Venezuela and for the United States”.
More Venezuela
Two global trading houses — Vitol and Trafigura — that brokered an opaque deal with the Trump administration this month to sell Venezuelan oil were previously prosecuted for bribery schemes involving oil sales elsewhere, reports the Washington Post. The findings underscore concerns by anti-corruption experts and lawmakers that the arrangement is vulnerable to abuse.
Trump said that he will reopen Venezuela’s airspace to commercial flights, clearing the way for airlines to resume service to the South American country, reports the Miami Herald.
American Airlines said it planned to resume services to Venezuela for the first time in more than six years pending government approval and subject to security assessments - Reuters
On Sunday, Rodríguez told a group of oil workers she had had “enough” of Washington’s orders, but on Wednesday the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told the U.S. Congress that communications with Venezuela’s new leaders had been “very respectful and productive.” (Guardian)
The Trump administration’s close cooperation with Rodríguez disappointed Venezuela’s political opposition, particularly those who hoped María Corina Machado could return to Venezuela. The Nobel laureate’s return at this point “poses a near-term threat to Trump’s plan for stabilizing the country and opening it up to massive investments from multinational oil companies,” David Smilde told the Washington Post.
The U.S. would also be unable to guarantee Machado’s safety, said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council. (Washington Post)
Colombia
Colombia’s top court ordered President Gustavo Petro’s government to pause an economic emergency decree that gave the presidency leeway for executive orders intended to boost government finances, reports Reuters.
The order rolls back decisions based on that decree, including taxation on gambling. (Infobae)
Brazil
A decade after the Belo Monte hydropower plant began to operate, Brazilian courts have found that it failed to meet a requirement to not threaten ecosystems and communities of Indigenous people along stretches of the Xingu river. The legal setbacks raise broader questions about Brazil’s reliance on hydropower, with several dams supplying most of the nation’s electricity, reports the Associated Press.
Haiti
Sexual and gender-based violence “is being used systematically to terrorise the population” in Port-au-Prince, according to a new report from Doctors Without Borders, based on 10 years of data from its clinic there. MSF said the number of victims it treated had almost tripled since 2021, warning of a “shocking increase in the brutality of the violence.” (AFP)
Argentina
JPMorgan courts Argentina by readily refilling stash of dollars - Bloomberg
Urbanismos
“Bogotá is a model for developing economies to follow not just in cleaning up the air and fighting climate change but in rethinking their cities,” reports the Guardian. “Bogotá is living proof of how cities can cut air pollution, fight climate change and give their residents healthier futures,” says Jaime Rueda, the Bogotá lead at Breathe Cities, a global initiative helping cities tackle air pollution.