President Donald Trump has vowed to starve Cuba of oil after last month's US military ousting of Nicolas Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, which had been the communist nation's main supplier of the commodity.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, formerly Cuba's second-largest oil supplier, has protested against the humanitarian impact of Trump's threats to impose tariffs on any country sending crude to Cuba.
The ships Papaloapan and Isla Holbox, sent by Sheinbaum's government, entered Havana Harbor on Thursday, an AFP team observed.
They brought fresh and powdered milk, meat, cookies, beans, rice and personal hygiene items, according to the Mexican foreign ministry.
"Mexico has always been in solidarity with Cuba," Cuban Marila Garcia, 52, told AFP at Havana's Malecon waterfront, from where the ships were visible.
For his part, fisherman Eliecer Rodriguez, 34, thanked Mexico for being "the only country that is responding right now" to Cuba's urgent needs.
Hundreds of tons more powdered milk and beans were awaiting shipment from Mexico, according to authorities there, as Chile and Russia also promised Thursday to send help.
- 'Ready to fall' -
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, have made no secret of their desire to bring about regime change in Havana.
The Republican leader has said Cuba is "ready to fall."
The island of 9.6 million inhabitants, under a US trade embargo since 1962, has for years been mired in a severe economic crisis marked by extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.
It has now also been cut off from critical oil supplies from Venezuela, and from Mexico under the threat of US tariffs.
The resulting shortages have threatened to plunge Cuba into complete darkness, with power plants struggling to keep the lights on.
No foreign fuel or oil tanker has arrived in Cuba in weeks, experts in maritime transport tracking have told AFP.
Emergency measures kicked in this week to conserve the island's fast-dwindling fuel stocks. The government shuttered universities, reduced school hours and the work week, and slashed public transport as it limited fuel sales.
Staffing at hospitals was also cut back.
On Monday, Sheinbaum said Trump's "unfair" measures would "strangle" an already teetering economy.
Her country has been mulling how to send oil to Cuba without incurring punishing tariffs.
"We will continue supporting them and taking all necessary diplomatic actions to restore oil shipments," Sheinbaum vowed.
- 'Dramatic situation' -
Chile under outgoing leftist President Gabriel Boric said Thursday it would also be sending aid to Cuba.
"This is a humanitarian issue, beyond the political characteristics its regime may have. What matters to us is meeting, as far as possible, the needs of the Cuban people," said Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren.
He added the aid was monetary, "which really no one could object to," and would be channeled through multilateral organizations.
In Moscow, the pro-government Izvestia media outlet reported that Russia would supply Cuba with oil as part of what it termed a humanitarian effort.
Russia's ministry of economic development told Izvestia that "as far as we know, Russia is expected to soon supply oil and petroleum products to Cuba as humanitarian aid."
On Monday, the Kremlin, a traditional ally of Cuba, accused the United States of attempting to "suffocate" the island nation.
In a statement from Geneva Thursday, a group of UN human rights experts slammed what they called an "extreme form of unilateral economic coercion" on the part of Washington.
"The US executive order imposing a fuel blockade on Cuba is a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order," the experts said in a statement.
UN climate chief says 'new world disorder' threatens cooperation
Istanbul (AFP) Feb 12, 2026 -
The UN's climate chief on Thursday urged countries to unite against an "unprecedented threat" to international cooperation from pro-fossil fuel forces -- issuing the appeal as US President Donald Trump rattles the global order.
Simon Stiell, the head of the United Nations climate body, spoke in Istanbul as Turkey prepares to host the COP31 climate summit on its Mediterranean coast later this year, with Australia leading the negotiations.
"COP31 in Antalya will take place in extraordinary times. We find ourselves in a new world disorder," Stiell said in an address alongside the president-designate of COP31, Turkish environment minister Murat Kurum.
"This is a period of instability and insecurity. Of strong arms and trade wars. The very concept of international cooperation is under attack," he said.
He did not name any countries but his plea comes as climate action is competing with concerns over security and economic growth around the world.
Trump has championed oil, gas and coal while moving to withdraw the United States from the UN's bedrock climate treaty after pulling out of the Paris Agreement, the landmark deal reached in 2015 on curbing global warming.
Stiell said in a news conference that the "door remains open" to welcoming the United States back to the fold.
The American leader, who has called global warming a "hoax", revoked on Thursday a landmark scientific finding that underpins US regulations aimed at curbing planet-warming pollution.
Trump has also rattled European allies with his desire to acquire Greenland, as shrinking Arctic sea ice is turning the region into a strategic battleground.
- 'Antidote to the chaos' -
Other nations have resisted moving away from oil, gas and coal.
The COP30 summit in Brazil late last year ended with a modest deal that lacked any explicit mention of fossil fuels amid opposition from oil giants such as Saudi Arabia, coal producer India and others.
The United States, the world's top economy and second-biggest polluter after China, shunned COP30.
The last three years have been the hottest globally on record, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.
Stiell warned that international climate cooperation was "under unprecedented threat: from those determined to use their power to defy economic and scientific logic, and increase dependence on polluting coal, oil and gas".
"Those forces are undeniably strong. But they need not prevail. There is a clear alternative to this chaos and regression," he said.
"And that is countries standing together, building on all we have achieved to date, to make it (international global cooperation) go further and faster."
He noted that investment in clean energy was more than double that of fossil fuels last year, while renewables overtook coal as the top electricity source.
"Security is the word on most leaders' lips, yet many cling to a definition that is dangerously narrow," Stiell said, warning that rising greenhouse gases mean "escalating climate extremes fuelling famine, displacement, and war".
Stiell urged nations to deliver on their 2023 agreement at COP28 in Dubai to triple clean energy capacity by 2030 and transition away from fossil fuels, and for the most ambitious to form "coalitions of the willing".
"Climate cooperation is an antidote to the chaos and coercion of this moment, and clean energy is the obvious solution to spiralling fossil fuel costs, both human and economic," he said.
Turkey will host COP31 while Australia will chair the negotiations under a compromise that was agreed late last year to end a dispute over where the event would take place.
Kurum said Turkey and Australia would work together to present a "robust" COP31 action agenda in March.
"Regression in global climate action is unacceptable," Kurum said.
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