Mexico shipped thousands of barrels of oil per day to Cuba during the first quarter of 2025

Mexico sent almost 20 thousand barrels of oil per day to the Cuban regime between January and March 2025.

According to a report by the Aztec newspaper El Universal, "during the quarter ending March 31, 2025, Gasolinas Bienestar S.A. de C.V., exported 19,600 barrels per day of crude oil and 2,000 barrels per day of petroleum products."

The shipments of Claudia Sheinbaum's government to the island, in this sector alone, are estimated at a total value of 3.1 billion Mexican pesos, about 167 million dollars approximately. This is not the first time this has happened: this is the seventh consecutive quarter that this country has exported shipments of hydrocarbons to Cuba.

According to documents to which El Universal had access, shipments to the Cuban regime accounted for 3.3% of the total crude oil exports of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), as well as 1.9% of the total shipments of gasoline and other petroleum products.

These figures show that Mexico has come to occupy the role that Venezuela occupied years ago with the largest of the Antilles with respect to the supply of hydrocarbons and 'energy aid,' just at the moment when Cuba is going through one of the greatest economic crises of the last decades.

What about the US sanctions for trading with the Cuban regime?

The newspaper explains that Pemex should have recognized the shipments before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

"Gasolinas Bienestar S.A. de C.V. sales are made through peso-denominated contracts at prevailing market rates. We have procedures in place to ensure that such sales are made in accordance with applicable law," the oil company assured in its report to the U.S. regulator.

Since 2023, shipments are managed through Gasolinas Bienestar S.A. de C.V., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pemex, which acquires crude from some of the state-owned company's affiliates for export to the regime.

This subsidiary, Mexican experts explain, prevents shipments from being managed through PMI, the Pemex affiliate in charge of carrying out gasoline imports or crude exports with the US.

"In this way, it seeks to avoid sanctions, since PMI does make transactions in the international payment system and it can face problems, which is why the Mexican government clarifies that it is through Gasolinas Bienestar S. A. de C. V.," Gonzalo Monroy, director of the consulting firm GMEC, told El Universal.

Mexico "helps" and "tolerates" the regime

On the subject, Manuel Valencia, professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, says that "with the hypocritical argument of the free self-determination of the peoples, Mexico, since 1959, has never condemned the regime." Mexico, since 1959, has never condemned the Cuban regime, nor does it do so with Venezuela, for example, it is not criticized and Mexico does not issue judgments, that is, it tolerates it and helps it in a now leftist posture."

Also the coordinator of the Competition and Regulation Program at the organization Mexico Evalúa, Ana Lilia Moreno, commented to the newspaper that the shipments to Cuba have an objective in terms of political discourse.

"Given that our administration, the past and the current one, are more akin to governments like the Cuban one, ideologically speaking, it becomes important that the transaction reported before the United States breaks the paradigm that the economic blockade, according to politicians, is the reason why Cuba lives in scarcity and precariousness," she told El Universal.

On October 31 last year, already as president, Sheinbaum specified that she would continue to support Cuba with hydrocarbons for humanitarian reasons.

The Mexican government also pays millions to the dictatorship for its doctors

The Mexican government, through IMSS-Bienestar, has also spent more than 2.019 billion pesos (approximately $112 million) to hire and maintain Cuban doctors in its region.

However, of that amount, IMSS-Bienestar does not know how much money was invested in the salary of each of the health professionals working in Mexico under the figure of "external collaborators."

According to the agency headed by the Morenista Zoé Robledo (General Director of the Mexican Social Security Institute) the federal government allocated more than 472 million to the private Cuban company Comercializadora de Servicios Cubanos, S.A., from July 2022 to December 2023 for the hiring of the doctors.

Several countries have been sanctioned in recent months for contracting Cuban medical services, and some have even rescinded the contracts because they consider, like the US, that it is "slave labor exported by the regime."