Cuba's government has sharply condemned the United States after Washington sanctioned Unión Cuba-Petróleo (Cupet), the state-owned company responsible for the island's crude extraction, refining and fuel production. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez accused US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of "further reinforcing" the economic and energy siege against Cuba, dismissing his justifications as "usual vulgar lies." Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva went further, asserting that the measure "deepens the energy blockade and with it the genocide" the United States commits against the Cuban people.

The State Department added Cupet to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list under Executive Order 14404, signed on 1 May, blocking all of the company's assets in the United States. The sanction follows the designation of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other officials just days earlier. Rubio argued that key Cupet assets "were unlawfully expropriated from American owners years ago" — a reference to Cuba's 1960 nationalisation of oil production — and accused the Cuban government of weaponising energy and diverting resources for personal enrichment, claims that news agencies noted he did not support with evidence. On social media, Rodríguez charged that Rubio acts out of "ambitions of conquest, presidential aspirations and the vindictive sentiments of the elitist clique that propelled his political career."

The announcement came shortly after US media outlets reported that Vanguard Energy, a firm based in Coral Gables, Florida, had been negotiating to lease Cupet storage facilities to send roughly 100,000 barrels of gasoline and 150,000 barrels of diesel to Cuba every 30 to 40 days — enough to cover approximately 11 days of the island's demand. The State Department denied issuing any licence to circumvent the embargo, and Miami-Dade County revoked Vanguard's local business licence on Thursday over the proposed shipments. Cuban economist Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the nonpartisan Cuba Study Group in Washington, said he was "genuinely vexed" by the Cupet sanction, questioning how private importers could deliver fuel without using Cupet infrastructure and warning the move could mark an "indiscriminate cruelty phase" of US policy.

The measures form part of the Trump administration's broader maximum-pressure campaign against Cuba, which has sought since January to choke off the island's fuel supplies — first by halting energy exports from Venezuela, and then by threatening tariffs against any country that ships oil to Cuba. Power outages, already chronic given a severe economic and energy crisis gripping the island for the past five years, have worsened since those threats began. Trump has also made increasingly direct remarks about Cuba, saying last week that the country has "sort of collapsed" and suggesting military attention could follow once other operations conclude. Analysts warn the latest sanctions risk hitting Cuba's most vulnerable citizens hardest, deepening shortages in a country where public fuel sales are already almost non-existent and heavily rationed. Rubio, himself of Cuban descent, acknowledged last month that prospects for any agreement between the two countries "is not high."