Mexico has sent a new shipment of humanitarian aid to Cuba, a country plagued by fuel and food shortages and frequent blackouts.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) said on Tuesday that two Mexican Navy ships carrying 1,193 tonnes of provisions had set sail for Cuba from the Gulf coast port city of Veracruz.
The Papaloapan and Huasteco logistics support vessels are expected to take four days to reach Cuba, meaning they should arrive this Saturday.
The SRE said that the Papaloapan is carrying 1,078 tonnes of provisions, including beans and powdered milk. The ministry said that the Huasteco is carrying 92 tonnes of beans and 23 tonnes of other foodstuffs that were donated by “various social organizations.”
The SRE said that the food aid has been dispatched to Cuba on the instructions of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has pledged to continue supporting the communist-run Caribbean island.
“The people of Mexico maintain their tradition of solidarity with the peoples of Latin America, and in particular with the people of Cuba,” the ministry said.
“Our country has always provided assistance to our sister nations in need,” the SRE said, noting that Mexico has contributed to the response to recent natural disasters in various countries of the Americas, including Chile and the United States.
The latest shipment of aid comes after the Papaloapan and another Navy vessel, the Isla Holbox, transported 814 tonnes of provisions to Cuba earlier this month.
The departure of those two vessels on Feb. 8 came 10 days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States would impose additional tariffs on goods from countries that supply oil to Cuba.
Sheinbaum said that the move — apparently aimed at accelerating regime change in Cuba — “could trigger a humanitarian crisis of great reach, directly affecting hospitals, food supply and other basic services for the Cuban people.”
Mexico — the largest supplier of oil to Cuba in 2025 — suspended shipments of oil to the communist-run island in order to avoid the imposition of additional tariffs on its exports to the United States.
🇲🇽 🇨🇦 🇨🇺 ÚLTIMA HORA: La presidenta mexicana, Claudia Sheinbaum, confirmó esta mañana que el fallo de la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos eliminó la amenaza arancelaria contra México por los envíos de petróleo a Cuba. Al preguntársele si se reanudarían las exportaciones, Sheinbaum… pic.twitter.com/YfTWWORVcW
— Tere Felipe (@_TereFelipe_) February 24, 2026
On Tuesday, Sheinbaum said that “that possible sanction no longer exists” as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Feb. 20 ruling against many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Asked whether Mexico would therefore resume the shipment of oil to Cuba, the president indicated that her government would make an announcement on the matter soon.
As a result of the United States’ military intervention in Venezuela in January, Cuba is no longer receiving crude from the oil-rich South American country.
The situation in Cuba
In her program “Cafecito informativo,” prominent Cuban journalist Yoani Sánchez said on Wednesday that people in Cuba are experiencing hunger.
“I have to say emphatically that people are going hungry in Cuba,” she said.
In addition to people rummaging through rubbish to find something to eat and “starving” seniors begging for money so they can buy food, other sectors of the Cuban population, including children, young people and pregnant women, are also suffering from a “nutritional deficit,” said Sánchez, founder of the Cuban news site 14 y medio.
“Many of them [only] eat once a day,” she said.
“Others, unfortunately can’t satisfy their desire to put something in their mouth during the day,” Sánchez added.
“… All this creates a series of very serious health problems,” she said.
The New York Times reported last Friday that people in Cuba “are struggling with frequent blackouts, shortages of gasoline and cooking gas and dwindling supplies of diesel that power the nation’s water pumps.”
“Trash is piling up, food prices are soaring, schools are canceling classes and hospitals are suspending surgeries,” reported the Times in an article headlined “A New U.S. Blockade is Strangling Cuba.”
“While President Trump has pledged to halt any oil headed to Cuba, the Trump administration has stopped short of calling its policy a blockade. But it is functioning as one,” the report said.
France 24 reported on Wednesday that “in response to the energy crisis, the Cuban government is implementing a four-day workweek and restricting fuel sales.”
“Ordinary Cubans are struggling to adapt. Vehicle owners are limited to 20 liters of petrol purchased through an app with long wait times,” the television network reported.
Frances Robles, a New York Times journalist who has reported extensively on Cuba, said Wednesday that “the situation in Cuba right now is just unsustainable.”
“… The government doesn’t have gasoline, you have shortages at state food stores, and you have blackouts that are lasting hours and hours every day,” she said.
“… Most experts say it’s nearly impossible to know how long they can last without oil coming into Cuba. But what is already a really bad crisis is expected to escalate to unprecedented proportions within a matter of weeks,” Robles said.
“… One thing that has really surprised me in all the interviews that I’ve done is that a lot of people actually do think that this could be the year the [Cuban communist] regime ends — either because of social unrest on the streets or because of some kind of negotiated solution that the Cuban government is going to be forced to accept,” she said.
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