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Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, journalist and figure in the official Cuban media apparatus, published a new episode of her podcast "Chapeando" on Cubadebate on Wednesday, in which she labels the claim that Venezuela was gifting oil to Cuba and that the regime resold it for its own benefit as a "lie repeated a thousand times by Marco Rubio."
The episode, titled "Viral Lies," also features Bárbara Betancourt and Reinier Duardo, and is part of the regime's communication strategy to counter what they call "psychological warfare" and fake news on social media, during a time of heightened pressure from the Trump administration on Havana.
The central argument of the podcast is that the supply of Venezuelan crude oil was not a gift but part of a Comprehensive Agreement between two sovereign nations, signed in 2000, in which Cuba compensated for the oil with the work of its professionals in Venezuelan territory.
"Why isn't there more discussion about the contribution of over 20,000 Cuban doctors who have traveled throughout the entire geography of Venezuela for two and a half decades, providing high-quality services?" Duardo raised in the program.
Regarding the sale of a portion of the crude received, the podcast provides a technical justification: "The sale of part of that fuel was not intended to enrich anyone. It relates to the type of crude they could offer us and the type that Cuba needed to acquire with the proceeds from its sale."
Rodríguez Derivet and his collaborators insist that "none of this is hidden or implies illegality," and that everything is part of an agreement between sovereign governments.
However, the available data contradicts that narrative. A U.S. government analysis released in January revealed that Cuba resold approximately 60% of the Venezuelan oil received between late 2024 and late 2025—about 40,000 out of the 70,000 daily barrels—shipping it to Asia via sanctioned tankers, while millions of Cubans endured blackouts of up to 25 hours a day.
This pattern is not new. Cuba transformed Soviet and Venezuelan oil into its largest source of foreign exchange for decades. Between 1977 and 1989, it generated between 3,000 and 5,000 million dollars by re-exporting subsidized crude oil from the USSR.
A U.S. State Department official described the practice as "another proof that the illegitimate Cuban regime only prioritizes its own enrichment."
The podcast also denounces three false news videos that recently circulated on social media: one featuring images from a video game presented as helicopters flying over Havana, another about a supposed annexation of Cuba and Guatemala to Mexico, and a third generated with artificial intelligence depicting a "hungry capitalino."
Duardo also warned against "explosive and alarmist" content, which he described as a "pre-softening technique" aimed at "provoking a state of uncertainty that breeds fear, with the objective of demobilizing and subduing the population."
The Cuban energy crisis worsened after the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, which disrupted between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels per day, representing two-thirds of Cuba's crude oil imports, in a country that needs approximately 110,000 barrels a day but only produces 40,000.
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