U.S. sanctions are dictating who gets aid and essentials in Cuba
The Trump administration is increasingly shaping the channels through which goods, fuel, investment, and humanitarian assistance can reach Cuba. Although U.S. sanctions contain humanitarian exemptions, those provisions alone do not ensure that aid is distributed evenly or in a timely manner. At the same time, Washington has expanded certain channels for transactions intended to benefit Cuba’s private sector while tightening restrictions on transactions involving Cuba’s government, military-linked entities, and other sanctioned actors.
The administration’s humanitarian assistance illustrates both sides of this approach. Washington has pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid for distribution through independent organizations, including Caritas Cuba. Yet shortages of delivery trucks, gasoline, and financial infrastructure severely limit its impact on the ground.
Those constraints extend beyond U.S.-funded assistance. Millions of dollars of regional, multilateral, and private humanitarian aid have been stranded or unable to be transported, creating a bottleneck in which aid authorized by Washington can take months to reach the people who need it the most. Questions have also emerged about the capacity and selection of some organizations receiving U.S. humanitarian contracts, including Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical humanitarian organization whose founder, Franklin Graham, has a longstanding relationship with President Trump and has secured a $40 million federal contract to distribute humanitarian assistance in Cuba. With the U.S. embassy announcing a shipment is due to arrive within the next few weeks, the question of how this aid will be distributed and by whom remains imperative.
Sanctions intended to impact Cuba’s government have instead caused chain reactions that harm Cubans and their ability to access both humanitarian aid and daily necessities. Shipping provides perhaps the clearest illustration of the gap between formal exemptions and practical access. Following the May 1 executive order expanding restrictions on Cuba, two major shipping companies, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM, suspended bookings to and from the island, citing compliance risks. Their suspension of operations affected up to 60 percent of Cuba’s shipping traffic, leaving thousands of containers carrying United Nations assistance, cancer drugs from the World Health Organization, medical supplies from Aid for the Caribbean, solar panels, and other critical supplies, unable to be transported. CMA CGM has since resumed limited services.
At the same time, trade through certain U.S.-authorized channels has expanded dramatically. Total U.S. goods exports to Cuba reached $674 million during the first seven months of 2026. In one area in particular, U.S. exports are surging: the energy sector. In 2025, U.S. fuel and oil exports to Cuba were valued at $311,558; in the first seven months of 2026, they reached $156.9 million. In June alone, U.S. companies’ shipments of petroleum products to Cuba reached 778,000 barrels. Even so, these shipments have not been enough to offset Cuba’s loss of fuel supplies from Venezuela and Mexico, leaving the island’s overall energy supply under significant pressure.
A similar reordering is emerging in the mining sector. Following the new U.S. sanctions, Sherritt International, the Canadian firm that had run Cuba’s Moa nickel and cobalt operations for three decades, suspended its venture. Two U.S.-backed investor groups are now competing for control of Cuba’s mineral resources. If either company succeeds, it would mark the first time U.S. capital has controlled Cuban mining assets in roughly sixty years.
New reporting by the Miami Herald suggests the administration hoped to strike a deal earlier this year that would position U.S. companies as the island’s major oil suppliers. In exchange, Cuba’s government would need to implement changes including the privatization of CUPET, Cuba’s state-owned energy company, and the departure of President Miguel Díaz-Canel. However, the report alleges that such talks broke down, citing opposition within the Cuban American community to aspects of a potential agreement. While the U.S. government has not commented on these reports, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla has since stated there are currently no negotiations or planned talks with Washington.
The U.S. government has stated that these sanctions are not intended to disrupt the delivery of essentials to the Cuban people. Yet, formal humanitarian authorization is only one part of the question of whether goods can actually reach the island and move through it. Sanctions can contribute to overcompliance by banks, shipping companies, and other private actors. Additionally, secondary sanctions are forcing businesses to leave Cuba altogether, deterred by the perceived commercial and financial risk of doing business there, leaving economic and infrastructure gaps.
A humanitarian exemption on paper does not, by itself, produce a shipping company willing to carry a container, a bank willing to process a transaction, or the fuel and transportation capacity needed to move supplies once they arrive. As Cuba’s humanitarian crisis deepens, with eight in 10 Cuban households now living on the margins of survival and the country experiencing its seventh nationwide blackout this year, the distinction between allowing aid in principle and making it possible to deliver aid at scale has become increasingly consequential.
