Opinion

An oil blockade that reaches our ships deserves Europe's answer

Washington's tariff threat names every ship that might carry fuel to Cuba, wherever it trades, and that includes ours. One common position and protection for the firms it penalises is Europe's to decide.

On 3 January, US forces raided Caracas and seized Nicolás Maduro. Periódico Cubano, an outlet hostile to Havana, counted 150 helicopters, none brought down. Cuba, whose main ally had been Venezuela, was next. Since that month, Washington has run an oil blockade against Cuba, tightened by secondary sanctions on everyone doing business with Havana, and in late January Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides the island with oil. A tariff on any seller reaches past the island. It names every ship that might carry fuel, wherever it trades, and that includes ours. Europe should answer with one common position and an instrument that protects the firms Washington penalises. Silence between the superpower and its target is also a policy. We choose the other one.

The blockade holds, backed now by open threats of military intervention. At a rally in Florida on 23 October, Trump told the crowd the US would deal with Cuba on its return from the war with Iran: one of its ships would stop about fifty yards off the Cuban coast, the Cubans would raise their hands, and Marco Rubio would be sent to finish the job. That is the plan, spoken aloud, against a country already starved of fuel. The objection: Europe must stand with Washington against a one-party regime, and that opposing the embargo helps the Castros' heirs. Answer them in their own terms: Rubio himself said in September that the current governance model gives the private sector no confidence their investments will pay off. We argue none of his reforms for him. Our quarrel is with the method. Europe can refuse that method without praising the regime.

A year from now. By then, Europe's answer must exist in law.

That outcome is within reach, and Washington itself shows it. In March 2026 the White House sought an economic deal with Cuba, after months of escalated tension and economic pressure through the blockade. Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, has stated the ground it stands on: Cuba has the full right to import fuel from markets willing to export it, without the unilateral coercive measures of the United States. A year in, you can also read the meter to see what waits on the decision: blackouts of twenty or more hours a day across wide areas, after Venezuela's deliveries fell from up to 100,000 barrels a day to an average of 27,000, against a need of about 110,000 and home production of about 40,000. The decision is Europe's to make.

Your foreign ministers can do this now: one common European position that rejects the oil blockade as what UN rights experts already called it, a violation of international law. The way past costs far less offence: frame the position around trade and hold the line the 130-state majority already drew. That argues with Washington about one method, not about its alliances. Ministers, put it on the Council agenda and vote it. And you: send the 130-to-17 figure to the minister who represents you, and ask which side of that vote Europe's trade stands on.