U.S. Coast Guard Intercepts Oil Shipments as Trump Tightens Cuba Blockade

Since January, the Trump administration has sought to choke off Cuba’s fuel supplies by sanctioning foreign companies and threatening tariffs on countries selling oil to the island.

Now, the blockade is escalating from economic coercion to physically stopping fuel before it reaches Cuba.

Federal officials announced Wednesday the seizure of 620,000 gallons of biodiesel at ports in Florida and Texas, including 71 oil storage tanks at Port Everglades and 19 additional tanks at the Port of Houston. They did not specify whether the fuel had already been loaded onto ships.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) says the fuel was destined for ENETEC, a Cuban state-run fuel wholesaler sanctioned in July.

ENETEC was blacklisted on the basis of Trump’s May 1 executive order, which authorized “secondary sanctions” against foreign businesses dealing with sanctioned Cuban entities.

The Coast Guard has also been boarding ships in international waters it claims are carrying illicit fuel to Cuba.

In June, the Coast Guard seized the Jaira Provider, which it said was carrying 200,000 gallons of fuel bound for Cuba.

Last week, the Coast Guard revealed that armed officers stopped the M/V Grace, a Comoros-flagged cargo ship, in international waters between Cuba and Mexico on September 5.

The Coast Guard escorted the ship to Progreso, Mexico, where Mexican naval inspectors say they discovered fuel in the ballast tanks.

Nothing in the May 1 executive order authorizes a naval blockade, maritime interdiction, boarding foreign vessels on the high seas or confiscating foreign-owned oil cargo outside U.S. jurisdiction.

The Coast Guard portrayed the seizure of the M/V Grace as part of its crackdown on “illicit Cuban fuel shipments.” But the alleged violation was the "unsafe stowage of fuel in ballast tanks," not the destination.

When Belly of the Beast asked how the Coast Guard knew fuel was stored in the ballast tanks before boarding, the agency did not respond. Nor did it identify any law prohibiting the delivery of fuel to Cuba.

“It is illegal to harass and intercept ships carrying fuel to Cuba in international waters, just as piracy and plunder are illegal,” Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío posted on Facebook.

The Cuban government has not publicly confirmed that either the Jaira Provider or the M/V Grace were bound for Cuba. The Coast Guard has not publicly disclosed evidence establishing that Cuba was the ships’ destination.

Mexican authorities reported that the ship had authorization from Comoros to travel to the Dominican Republic, with an explicit prohibition on diverting to Cuba.