AMLO downplays US sensitivity to Cuba aid

Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shrugged off potential US opposition to Mexican fuel, food and medical aid to Cuba.

"We do have a very good relationship with the US government," AMLO, as the president is widely known, said today as a Mexican products tanker berthed in Havana port.

"We attempt to keep those good relations, a good neighbor with cooperation for development. But in the case of Cuba we do not agree with the blockade," he said, referring to the decades-old US embargo on the island.

The president said one more tanker will depart today with oxygen for Cuba's hospitals and another one tomorrow with food, but he did not mention the possibility of more fuel shipments.

The medium-range Jose Maria Morelos II tanker, which is owned by Mexico's state-owned Pemex, loaded at the Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos on 23 July. It was not immediately clear what type of fuel the vessel was carrying, but Mexico has a surplus of fuel oil, a product that Cuba uses for power generation.

AMLO said the fuel was sent to restore power supply to Cuban hospitals, in response to a letter he received from Cuba's president Miguel Diaz-Canel. AMLO said Mexico is acting as an "independent, free and sovereign" country. "If we were sending guns, well maybe we could see a conflict [with the US], and even then every country is independent, but … food, medicine? Why the blockade?"

The US embargo on Cuba has ample exceptions, including for food, medicine and agricultural products. US administration officials have not commented on Mexico's fuel supply to Cuba. Russia also sent aid to Cuba over the weekend. The former Soviet Union was Havana's main patron during the Cold War.

For two decades, Cuba has depended on its close ally Venezuela for almost all of its oil needs, but the Opec country's deteriorated national oil industry has lost production and refining capacity to sustain supplies at home or abroad. The fuel shortage in Cuba has exacerbated electricity blackouts, one of the many grievances that sparked rare protests on 11 July. The civil unrest was harshly quelled by special forces which drew US sanctions in response.

By Sergio Meana and Patricia Garip