The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, confirmed this Monday that she made a personal donation of 20,000 Mexican pesos —equivalent to about 1,100 dollars— to an account set up to send humanitarian aid to Cuba.
Sheinbaum revealed the amount during her daily press conference and clarified that the operation was not without setbacks: "There were indeed problems with the deposit," she admitted, although she specified that it finally went through, reported EFE.
The official was emphatic in separating the donation from her position: "This is my personal decision, by Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, to donate to an account opened by a number of organizations to provide aid to Cuba. It has nothing to do with my role as president of the people of Mexico."
The funds were deposited into the account of the civil association Humanidad con América Latina, established on March 9, 2026, and connected to the nephew of the poet Carlos Pellicer Cámara, a political mentor of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
It was precisely AMLO who, in mid-March, came out of retirement to make a call on social media for donations to Cuba, stating that it "hurts" him what is happening to the Cuban people.
Sheinbaum recently publicly endorsed and announced that she would make a personal contribution, the amount of which she would disclose later.
Following AMLO's call, senators and politicians from the Morena party also began to publicly donate to the same account.
In this regard, the Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked on social media his "dear brother" López Obrador for the initiative.
However, the donation generated criticism from Washington. The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, stated that "the best way to help the Cuban people is by empowering them, not the regime that has oppressed them for decades," paraphrasing Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Sheinbaum responded to the criticism firmly: "The only ones who don't want to support the Cuban people are some far-right opponents, while the people of Mexico are fully in favor of humanitarian aid to Cuba and any country in the world."
In the same space, but days earlier, the Mexican president Sheinbaum defended the possibility of resuming the official shipment of oil to Cuba, suspended by Pemex in January 2026 due to pressure from the Trump administration.
He noted that the tariffs imposed by Washington on those who sent fuel to the island were later reduced, and that the decision will be made according to the prevailing tariff conditions.
Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis, with a projected contraction of 7.2% in 2026 and an accumulated decline of 23% since 2019, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, worsened by prolonged blackouts and shortages of food and medicine.
"As long as I am president, that will continue to be the position. Because it is by Constitution and by conviction, and what brings us closer to the Cuban people is something extraordinary," concluded Sheinbaum.
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