The administration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump threatened tariffs on 29 January on imports of any country selling oil to Cuba, in a move that might hasten the demise of the island's communist regime. Trump signed an executive order to that effect, though he told reporters in Washington D.C. he was not trying to "choke off" Cuba and its rundown economy, AP reported. Cuba, an ally of all the United States' villain states including Islamic Iran and Russia, was no longer receiving oil aid from Venezuela following U.S. intervention there in early January, and it was likely Mexico, also under a socialist administration, may also have to curb the oil it sends there as a lifeline. Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum said on 27 January that her country sent oil to Cuba for humanitarian reasons, and stopping supplies was a decision to be taken by the state oil firm Pemex, CNN reported. On 29 January, the United States declared Cuba to be "an unusual and extraordinary threat" to its national security.
