US Eases Ban on Venezuelan Oil Exports to Cuba

The United States has confirmed it will allow Venezuela to provide oil to Cuba, in the wake of growing alarm over a deepening humanitarian crisis in the Western Caribbean island.
Island.

The US Treasury Department said Washington would allow “transactions that support the Cuban people” that include Venezuelan oil for “commercial and humanitarian use”.

The AFP News agency says to qualify, the exports would need to go through private businesses and not the vast government or military apparatus in the communist state.

The decision was announced while US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was engaging in talks with Caricom leaders in St Kitts on Wednesday. There have been increasing concerns from regional leaders that the oil blockade was triggering a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which could put the entire region in peril.

Rubio has however warned that restrictions would be reimposed on Cuba’s imports of Venezuelan oil if Havana violated the “spirit” of the easing of the US embargo.