UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that Cuba risks humanitarian collapse if its oil needs remain unmet as US threats to cut fuel supplies worsen energy shortages, blackouts and economic strain.
UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that struggling Cuba risks humanitarian “collapse” if its oil needs go unmet, his spokesman said Wednesday, as the United States threatened to cut energy supplies to the island as part of a pressure campaign.
“The secretary-general is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said the United States had begun talks with “the highest people in Cuba,” days after declaring Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security and threatening tariffs on the US-bound exports of any nation that sends oil to the communist-run island.
“I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Sunday.
Friction has increased in recent weeks as the US has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts, even in the capital Havana.
With inputs from agencies
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