United Nations, January 30 (Prensa Latina) The Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Aziz Haq, reiterated today the United Nations’ position in favor of lifting the US blockade against Cuba.

• January 30, 2026 | 2:18 PM

“As you know, the General Assembly has repeatedly called for an end to the blockade against Cuba,” the spokesman said in response to a question from Prensa Latina about the strengthening of that policy, following the new executive order from the Donald Trump administration to unilaterally impose coercive tariffs on countries that sell oil to the Caribbean nation.

“We urge all Member States,” he said, “to comply with the resolutions of the General Assembly.”

An executive order issued by the White House on January 29 and signed by the Republican president declares a “national emergency” regarding Cuba and, to address it, deemed it “necessary and appropriate” to establish a system of tariffs against countries that provide “directly or indirectly” any type of oil to Cuba.

Days before Trump’s return to the White House last year, the UN confirmed to Prensa Latina that it welcomed “the United States’ announcement of January 14 regarding, among other measures, the removal of Cuba from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.”

It was a belated act by the outgoing Joe Biden administration, but it was a step in the right direction.

However, after taking office a week later, in his first hours in the executive mansion, Trump reversed Biden’s decision with an executive order without presenting any new evidence and ignoring the work and judgment of his own state agencies.

The reactions were swift. UN Secretary-General António Guterres even acknowledged at the time that Cuba’s conduct in some mediation processes, such as the peace process in Colombia, contradicts its continued inclusion on such a list.

Cuba was first included in that list of State sponsors of terrorism in 1982, during the government of Republican Ronald Reagan until, in 2015, Democratic President Barack Obama withdrew such designation, considering that it lacked merit.

The economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba constitutes a unilateral, coercive and extraterritorial policy that violates International Law and the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

After 65 years of application, the central objective has not changed: to deteriorate the standard of living of the population, to provoke dissatisfaction, despair and irritation, as a means to bring about a change in the constitutional order that the Cuban people have freely chosen.

The US administration persists in ignoring the almost unanimous call from the international community to end this illegal and inhumane policy against Cuba, expressed in 33 UN General Assembly resolutions.

arc/dfm

Washington, January 30 (Prensa Latina) Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib stated today that Cuba poses no threat to the United States and that she is horrified by the attempt by the Donald Trump administration to strangle an entire people.

• January 30, 2026 | 7:00 PM

Tlaib, a member of the House of Representatives from Michigan, reacted in this way to the executive order signed by President Trump on January 29 declaring a “national emergency” regarding Cuba.

Therefore, the Republican president considered imposing a tariff regime against all countries that directly or indirectly try to supply oil to the island.

“This Executive Order will kill countless innocent Cubans,” the legislator wrote on her social media account, emphasizing in the statement that “homes, schools, and hospitals without electricity. Children without food or medicine. Cuba poses no threat to the United States. This is pure cruelty.”

Trump’s measure, which has met with strong rejection both inside and outside the United States, is a further tightening of the unilateral embargo that has been trying to suffocate Cubans for more than six decades and is part of the current maximum pressure policy of the White House against Cuba.

President Trump conditions the modification of this directive “on Cuba or the affected countries taking significant steps to address the threat or to align themselves with the national security and foreign policy objectives of the United States.”

Upon his return to the executive mansion on January 20, 2025, Trump took among his first actions in office to reverse a decision made just seven days earlier by his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, by reinstating Cuba on the arbitrary and unilateral list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism.

Since then, hostile measures have rained down on the Caribbean nation in an attempt by the United States government to bring it down and provoke a regime change.

rc/dfm

January 30, 2026

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the new US escalation against Cuba.

Now the US government intends to impose a total blockade on Cuba’s fuel supplies.

In order to justify that, it resorts to a long list of lies with the purpose of portraying Cuba as a threat, which it actually is not. Every day there are new evidence showing that the only threat to peace, security and stability in the region and the only malignant influence is the one exerted by the US government against the peoples and nations of our America. It intends to submit them to its dictates, deprive them of their resources, mutilate their sovereignty and deprive them of their independence.

The US government is also resorting to blackmail and coercion in an attempt to make other countries to join its universally condemned blockade policy against Cuba; and if they refuse to do so, it is threatening to apply arbitrary and abusive tariffs in violation of all free trade rules.

We denounced to the world this brutal act of aggression against Cuba and its people on which it has imposed, for more than 65 years, the longest-lasting and most cruel blockade ever imposed against an entire nation and which it now has committed to subject to extreme living conditions.

(Cubaminrex)

Havana, January 30 (Prensa Latina) The Revolutionary Government today condemned the new escalation by the United States against Cuba, which through an executive order seeks to impose an absolute blockade on fuel supplies to the island.

• January 30, 2026 | 10:01 PM

In an official statement, the Cuban government described as “extreme” the measure announced on January 29, which declares a supposed national emergency to impose tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba.

The text noted that to justify this action, “an extensive list of lies and defamatory accusations is brandished,” including the “absurd assertion” that Cuba constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.

He stressed that the Washington government “is aware that no one or very few can believe such mendacious arguments, but they don’t care,” and accused the US administration of showing “contempt for the truth, public opinion, and government ethics.”

The statement asserted that the executive order consolidates “a dangerous way of conducting U.S. foreign policy by force,” by claiming “the right to dictate to sovereign states which nations they can trade with.”

He stressed that this provision “constitutes a flagrant violation of International Law” and undermines the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

The Cuban government recalled that Washington “has reached this point after having failed for 67 years to subdue and destroy a genuine and legitimate political and revolutionary process,” and reaffirmed the island’s historic willingness to engage in bilateral dialogue based on mutual respect.

He emphasized that “Cuba poses no threat whatsoever to the United States” and described the country as “a peaceful, supportive and cooperative country, willing to help and contribute to other states.”

He warned that imperialism “is mistaken when it believes that economic pressure will break the resolve to defend national sovereignty.”

Finally, he called on the international community to define “whether a crime of this nature can be a sign of what is to come” and reaffirmed the decision to confront the measure “with firmness, equanimity and the certainty that reason is absolutely on our side.”

rc/mks

January 29, 2026 — Belly of the Beast

After headlines suggested Mexico had suspended oil shipments to Cuba, President Claudia Sheinbaum stepped in once again to clarify what actually happened. Sheinbaum explained that oil from Mexico reaches Cuba through two paths: contracts managed by state-owned oil corporation Pemex, and humanitarian aid decided directly by the Mexican government.

Neither, she said, has been halted. The confusion comes at a critical moment for Cuba, as U.S. sanctions tighten and fuel shortages deepen. Sheinbaum emphasized again that humanitarian aid is a sovereign decision and will continue.

January 29, 2026 — Belly of the Beast

In a recent article for The American Conservative, Belly of the Beast’s Reed Lindsay shows how current Cuba policy contradicts the principles and goals laid out in Trump’s own National Security Strategy.

“Current Cuba policy is rooted not in our core national interests, but in Cold War nostalgia and Florida politics. These have stymied the recalibration explicitly called for in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy,” writes Lindsay. “A 180-degree shift toward engagement is not a concession or a gamble — it is the most coherent way to bring U.S. policy toward Cuba into alignment with the administration’s strategic vision for the hemisphere.”

​Read the full article here

Mexico City, January 28 (Prensa Latina) Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum affirmed today that her country continues to provide humanitarian aid to Cuba, which has been besieged by the United States’ economic, commercial and financial blockade for more than six decades.

• January 28, 2026 | 10:45

“Humanitarian aid to Cuba, as to other countries, continues, because it is humanitarian aid and Mexico has always been in solidarity with everyone. And these are sovereign decisions,” the head of the Executive Branch asserted during her usual press conference.

Sheinbaum alluded to the two ways in which oil is delivered to the largest of the Antilles: one of them is humanitarian aid and the other through contracts established by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) with some institution of the Cuban Government.

“That’s why I say it’s a sovereign decision of Mexico to send humanitarian aid and, with Pemex, in terms of the contract, when it sends it. I never spoke about whether the shipments to the island had been suspended or not,” the president clarified.

She added that “that was a later interpretation based on a note that came out in a newspaper.”

According to the most recent data, Washington’s blockade against Cuba caused damages estimated at seven billion 556.1 million dollars between March 2024 and last February, an increase of 49 percent compared to the previous period.

In the health sector alone, that policy resulted in losses of nearly $300 million in one year, while the impact in the energy sector exceeded $496 million due to restrictions on importing fuels and spare parts.

On October 29, Cuba achieved a new victory in the United Nations General Assembly by obtaining 165 votes in favor of the resolution calling for an end to the blockade.

jha / las