Russia will continue to help Cuba with vital oil supplies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today, two weeks after Moscow sent a tanker carrying some 700.000 barrels of crude to the Caribbean country.
Washington halted oil exports to Cuba from Havana’s key ally Venezuela after US special forces arrested its president Nicolás Maduro on January 3, causing acute fuel shortages on the island of nearly 11 million people.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on countries that send crude to Cuba in a bid to put pressure on its government. The US later allowed Russian oil to be delivered to Cuba, the first this year from Moscow, on humanitarian grounds.
Mexico, another major supplier to Cuba, also halted shipments.
Lavrov, who is visiting China, said Russia would provide humanitarian aid to Cuba, its longtime ally.
“We have sent the first tanker with 100,000 tons (700,000 barrels) of oil to Cuba. Of course this will probably take a month or two to arrive -I am not an expert,” he told a briefing of reporters at the end of his two-day visit to China.
“However, I have no doubt that we will continue to provide such assistance, and that (China) will certainly continue to participate in this cooperation as well,” Lavrov added, without mentioning the issue of a US license or not for future deliveries.
Cuba produces less than a third of the oil it needs. The Trump administration, while giving the green light to recent oil shipments from Russia, has announced that it will consider further oil transfers to Cuba “on a case-by-case basis.”
The Russian foreign minister also said he hoped the US would not return to the days of “colonial wars.”
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