The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla responded to the statements made by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, stating that the claim that Cuba receives Venezuelan fuel for free is false.
In a video posted on his X account on Thursday, recorded during an interview for the podcast Cuba Analysis, the chancellor was emphatic: "It is completely false, it is a lie."
Rodríguez argued that the fuel was arriving "under normal international trading conditions," whether through "exports of medical services or through purchases made under conditions even less favorable than those of the market," due to the "country risk" that, according to him, is created by Washington's hostility.
The statement comes amid a public confrontation between Rodríguez and Rubio that erupted following a new round of U.S. sanctions announced this Thursday, which included the Banco Exterior de Cuba, Fidel Ernesto Castro Calis —grandson of Raúl Castro— and four state entities linked to the energy sector: Comercial CUPET S.A., ABAPET, NICAROTEC, and CEXNI.
Rubio, while defending the measures, accused the regime’s leadership of enriching themselves at the expense of the population: “The elites of the Cuban communist regime preside over a failed state where ordinary Cubans suffer from hunger while the Castro family and other associates enrich themselves through sanctions evasion and other illicit schemes.”
The chancellor responded by accusing the Secretary of State of "lying about Cuba for two consecutive days" and described the sanctions as "collective punishment" and a "crime."
The background of the debate refers to the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement signed between Cuba and Venezuela in October 2000, which established a framework for oil in exchange for professional services—primarily medical—at market price with preferential financing, not a free donation.
Venezuela managed to send between 53,000 and 115,000 barrels daily during different periods. However, Rubio has maintained that Cuba resold about 60% of the Venezuelan crude oil received to Asian markets, an argument he uses to assert that the oil effectively functioned as a subsidy benefiting the ruling elite.
Following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in January 2026, Venezuelan supply was drastically disrupted.
In April, President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that Cuba had gone four consecutive months without receiving fuel from abroad, a situation that has intensified the power outages and shortages currently affecting the population.
Since January 2026, the Trump administration has accumulated more than 240 designations related to Cuba as part of its maximum pressure policy. Rubio summarized the strategy in August with a phrase that defines the direction: "Every time they create a new mechanism to try to escape the noose, we simply tighten it."
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