On Feb. 9, 2026, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters at the presidential palace that Mexico will dispatch a second tranche of humanitarian aid to Cuba in the coming days and urged the United States not to punish countries that supply fuel to the island.
Sheinbaum framed the delivery as an expression of solidarity, saying Mexico had already sent food to Cuba and would continue to provide assistance “within our means.” She described silence in the face of sanctions on Cuba as unacceptable and presented the aid as both pragmatic relief and a moral stance.
The president singled out U.S. measures that penalize third countries for supplying oil to Cuba, arguing such policies deepen the hardships facing ordinary Cubans and are “very unfair.” Sheinbaum said Mexico will take necessary steps to press for the removal of sanctions on nations that provide crude oil to Cuba, signaling an intent to contest the extraterritorial effects of American policy.
Her comments come against a longer history of U.S. economic pressure on Havana and occasional U.S. moves to curtail suppliers’ ability to trade with the island. Latin American states from Caracas to Mexico City have periodically objected to the reach of Washington’s sanctions, which critics say compound humanitarian problems even when targeted at geopolitical rivals.
Beyond the immediate shipment, Mexico’s stance is politically and diplomatically significant. It reflects a conscious shift by Sheinbaum’s administration toward a more independent regional posture, one that seeks to defend sovereignty and humanitarian norms while courting solidarity with other left-leaning governments in the region.
Practically, Mexico’s aid is limited in scale and symbolic in weight: humanitarian deliveries can alleviate immediate needs, but reversing sanctions requires action by the United States and, in some cases, laws and secondary measures enforced by Washington. What to watch next are Mexico’s diplomatic maneuvers—whether it will build a coalition at international fora, press Washington directly, or coordinate with other suppliers to blunt the effects of U.S. penalties.
Mexico’s intervention on Cuba underscores a broader contest over how Latin American states manage relations with the United States while asserting independent foreign-policy priorities. The coming weeks will reveal whether this is a one-off gesture of solidarity or the opening of sustained diplomatic pressure to roll back measures that many in the region view as punitive and counterproductive.