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Ricardo Pascoe, Mexico's ambassador to Cuba from 2000 to 2002, stated that President Claudia Sheinbaum is surrounded by "Cuban advisers" who dictate the close cooperation with the regime.
“She (Sheinbaum) is surrounded by Cuban advisors (…) in the National Palace, and obviously, they are applying pressure and are a fundamental factor in Mexico attempting this ideological shift towards Cuba,” the diplomat said in an interview with Mega Noticias.
"We are the main supplier of gasoline to the Island from a company, the Mexican Pemex, which is currently in absolute bankruptcy, by the way. This is the company that is currently funding the Cuban economy," he stated
Pascoe considers it to be "a very delicate geopolitical situation" that puts the relationship with the U.S., Mexico's main trade partner, at risk.
"This completely contaminates the negotiation, it changes the terms of Mexico's relationship with the United States. Yes, it puts us at risk with our main trading partner," he said.
"It's complicated because Cuba always had a line of credit with Mexico, and through that line of credit, it paid us a part, which was the oil that was sent to them. However, Cuba would pay back a portion of the credit along with the interest, and Mexico would lend money to them again," he commented.
Pascoe commented that, under the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, Cuba "saw the debt canceled because in reality, the Cubans had already stopped paying. And so during the entire term of López Obrador, it was purely donations, and obviously with Scheinbaum, it's exactly the same."
On Friday, the oil tanker Ocean Mariner arrived in the bay of Havana with nearly 86,000 barrels of fuel from Mexico, in a shipment aimed at alleviating the prolonged blackouts experienced by the island.
According to sources from the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, confirmed to EFE , the ship, flying the flag of Liberia, arrived in the Cuban capital after departing the previous month from the Pajaritos complex of the state-owned Pemex, in southern Mexico.
After Maduro's fall, Mexico has become the main oil supplier for the regime in Havana.
This Monday, Sheinbaum reiterated that she will seek to strengthen collaboration and coordination with the United States, but she warned that the sovereignty and independence of the country are non-negotiable, following threats from her U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, to launch ground attacks against Mexican drug cartels.
“With the United States, we must collaborate, we need to coordinate; we are neighbors. But there is something that is non-negotiable: the sovereignty and independence of the homeland,” affirmed Sheinbaum this weekend during a visit to the state of Guerrero, international news agencies reported.
The president instructed Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and, if necessary, with President Trump to "strengthen coordination" within the framework of the security agreement between the two countries, as she revealed on Friday at her morning press conference.
Sheinbaum's statements come after Trump claimed Thursday night, in an interview with the television network Fox News, that he would initiate ground operations against drug cartels, which he accused of “killing 250,000 to 300,000 people” in his country each year.
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