MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuba accuses Rubio of tightening the US economic and energy blockade after Cupet sanction

Rubio accused the Cuban government of using energy “as a weapon” and of diverting resources to enrich itself, a claim that, according to news agencies, he did not back with evidence.

Cuba's government on Thursday accused US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of “further reinforcing” the economic and energy siege against the island, after Washington sanctioned the state company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (Cupet), which handles crude extraction, refining and production. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez charged that Rubio resorts to “usual vulgar lies” to justify the measure.

The State Department added Cupet to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list, under Executive Order 14404, signed on May 1, for operating in the Cuban energy sector; its assets in the United States are now blocked. The company joins the list of sanctioned entities and officials, among them President Miguel Díaz-Canel, designated a week earlier. Rubio said key assets of Cupet “were unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago” —a reference to the 1960 nationalization of oil production— and accused the Cuban government of using energy “as a weapon” and of diverting resources to enrich itself, a claim that, according to news agencies, he did not back with evidence.

Rodríguez replied on social media that Rubio acts “out of ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations and the vindictive sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career.” Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Trade chief Oscar Pérez-Oliva went further, asserting that the sanction “deepens the energy blockade and with it the genocide” the United States commits against the Cuban people.

The measure came days after US outlets such as Bloomberg and the Miami Herald reported that the firm Vanguard Energy, based in Coral Gables, Florida, was negotiating to lease Cupet storage facilities to send fuel to the island —about 100,000 barrels of gasoline and 150,000 of diesel every 30 to 40 days, enough to cover 11 days of demand. The State Department denied granting a license to evade the blockade, and Miami-Dade County on Thursday revoked Vanguard's local fiscal license over its “proposed fuel shipments” to Cuba.

The sanctions are part of the maximum-pressure campaign of Donald Trump's administration, which since January has sought to cut off fuel supplies to the island: first by halting energy exports from its ally Venezuela, then by threatening tariffs against any country that ships oil to Cuba. Analysts warn the measure could worsen Cuba's energy crisis —marked by blackouts and fuel shortages— and hit the most vulnerable population hardest. Rubio, of Cuban descent, said last month that the likelihood of an agreement between the two countries “is not high.”