So said Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel, responding to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s June 11 imposition of sanctions on Cuba’s oil and gas company, Cupet, two days after the State Department halted a shipment of 250,000 barrels of oil to Cuba from a Florida-based firm, Vanguard Energy. The company had spent months arranging for the shipment with Cuban authorities, but Rubio charged that it lacked authorization and licensing to do so. It has been the case for some time that oil shipments were allowed for delivery to Cuba’s small private sector, although the final destination of Vanguard’s shipment is unclear. The oil was to have been stored in Cupet’s storage facilities.
But Rubio jumped at the chance to sanction Cupet, as did the Treasury Department whose Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) labelled it a “Specially Designated National,” with which no other foreign company can do businesses without being subject to secondary sanctions. In a post to X, reported by Granma President Diaz-Canel charged that with this action, the U.S. “intends to tighten the `oil noose’ on Cuba, asphyxiate its people and force them to surrender out of hunger, needs and illness. We are witnessing the rebirth of fascism in its purest state. This imperial cruelty knows no bounds.”
