US eases oil embargo on Cuba as Caribbean neighbours warn worsening humanitarian crisis could destabilise region.
Published On 26 Feb 2026
The United States has said it will allow the resale of some Venezuelan oil to Cuba in a move that could ease the island’s acute fuel shortages, as neighbouring countries raised the alarm over a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation caused by Washington’s oil blockade.
In a statement on Wednesday, the US Department of the Treasury said it would authorise companies seeking licences to resell Venezuelan oil for “commercial and humanitarian use in Cuba”.
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It said the new “favorable licensing policy” would not cover “persons or entities associated with the Cuban military, intelligence services, or other government institutions”.
Venezuela had been the main supplier of crude and fuel to Cuba for the past 25 years through a bilateral pact mostly based on the barter of products and services. But since the US abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month and took control of the country’s oil exports, Caracas’s supply to Cuba has ceased.
Mexico, which had emerged as an alternate supplier, also halted shipments to the Caribbean island after the US threatened tariffs on countries that send oil to Cuba. The US blockade has worsened an energy crisis in Cuba that is hitting power generation and fuel for vehicles, houses and aviation.
The shift in US policy came as Caribbean leaders gathering in Saint Kitts and Nevis expressed alarm at the impacts of the blockade on the island nation of some 10.9 million people. Speaking to Caribbean leaders during a meeting of the regional political group CARICOM on Tuesday, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness affirmed solidarity with Cuba.
“Humanitarian suffering serves no one,” Holness said at the meeting. “A prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba.”
The Caribbean summit’s host, Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew, who studied in Cuba to be a doctor, said friends have told him of food scarcity and rubbish strewn in the streets.
“A destabilised Cuba will destabilise all of us,” Drew said.
But addressing the meeting in Saint Kitts and Nevis on Wednesday, US Secretary o