The United States has eased an oil embargo on Cuba as its Caribbean neighbors warn that a worsening humanitarian crisis could destabilize the region.
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The United States has announced it will allow some Venezuelan oil to be resold to Cuba in a bid to ease the island’s severe fuel shortages, as neighboring countries are sounding the alarm that the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating due to the US government’s oil blockade.
The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday that it would approve companies seeking licenses to resell Venezuelan crude oil for “commercial and humanitarian use in Cuba.”
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The report said the new “favorable licensing policy” would not cover “individuals or entities associated with the Cuban military, intelligence services, or other government agencies.”
Venezuela has been a major supplier of crude oil and fuel to Cuba for the past 25 years, primarily through bilateral agreements based on the exchange of goods and services. But Caracas’ supplies to Cuba have been cut off since the United States abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month and took control of the country’s oil exports.
Mexico, which had emerged as an alternative supplier, also halted shipments to the Caribbean island after the United States threatened to impose tariffs on countries sending crude oil to Cuba. The U.S. blockade has worsened Cuba’s energy crisis, hitting power generation and fuel for cars, homes and planes.
The U.S. policy change comes as Caribbean leaders gathered in St. Kitts and Nevis expressed alarm about the impact of the blockade on the island nation of about 10.9 million people. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness spoke to Caribbean leaders on Tuesday at a meeting of regional political group CARICOM and affirmed his solidarity with Cuba.
“Humanitarian suffering serves no one,” Holness said at the meeting. “The prolongation of the Cuban Missile Crisis will not be limited to Cuba.”
Prime Minister Terence Drew of St. Kitts and Nevis, the host of the Caribbean Summit, said he had studied abroad in Cuba to become a doctor and had heard from friends about food shortages and trash on the streets.
“A destabilized Cuba will destabilize us all,” Drew said.
However, at a meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that the humanitarian crisis was caused by the Cuban government’s policies, not Washington’s blockade.
Rubio, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1956, warned that sanctions would be lifted immediately if the oil ended up in the hands of the government or military.
“Cuba needs to change. It needs to change dramatically, because that’s the only chance we have to improve the quality of life for our people,” Rubio told reporters.
This is “a system that is crumbling and needs dramatic reform,” he said.
Rubio went on to blame economic mismanagement and the lack of a vibrant private sector for the dire situation in Cuba, which has been under communist rule since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
“This is the worst economic situation Cuba has ever faced, and the local authorities and their government are responsible for that,” Rubio said.
According to Reuters, due to US pressure on Venezuela and Cuba, several fuel shipments have remained undelivered since December, causing the island to be unable to keep its lights on and traffic through. A Cuban-linked ship loaded with Venezuelan gasoline in early February at a port run by state-run company PDVSA remained anchored in Venezuelan waters this week, awaiting permission to sail.
Meanwhile, Mexico and Canada announced they would send aid to Cuba, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said his government was discussing the possibility of supplying fuel to Cuba.
Separately on Wednesday, Cuba’s Interior Ministry announced that four people were killed and six others injured on a Florida-registered speedboat that allegedly entered Cuban waters.
Rubio told reporters this was not a U.S. operation and no U.S. government officials were involved.
“Let me just say this: It’s extremely unusual for a gunfight to occur on the open sea like this,” he said. “It’s not something that happens every day. Frankly, it hasn’t happened in Cuba in a long time.”
