On March 30, Trump personally said he was not opposed to such a shipment. “I told them, if a country wants to send oil to Cuba right now, that’s no problem for me. Whether it’s Russia or anybody else” (quoted by The New York Times), they write vedomosti.ru.
At the same time, on March 12, the U.S. Treasury Department’s website published General License 134 on “Authorization for the Supply and Sale of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Loaded on Vessels.” According to the document, Russia was given the opportunity to sell crude oil loaded on tankers by March 12 within a month (until April 11).
General License 134 of the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department does not apply to foreign business entities not connected with the U.S. jurisdiction, said BGP Litigation partner Sergei Glandin. These rules, the expert continued, regulate the activities of US banks, their transportation and logistics companies and importers so that they can make payments on or enter into various transactions related to Russian oil without the risk of secondary sanctions. “That is, if Russian or other tankers that transport Russian oil and do not conduct transactions in U.S. dollars do not have legal relations with U.S. persons, then General License 134 is simply not applicable,” the expert explained. At the same time, the U.S. can impose a naval blockade of Cuba and not allow certain vessels to pass simply by the right of the strong, Glandin noted. But if Moscow uses military-political and diplomatic leverage, Washington may make concessions and allow passage for Russian vessels, the expert added.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there were contacts between the Russian and American sides that allowed the tanker to pass.
The supply of a limited batch of Russian oil to Cuba may be the result of agreements between American and Russian parliamentarians during their recent talks in Washington, admitted Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at ISKRAN. Obviously, this volume of fuel will not solve the problem of energy supply to the island: “Washington is still interested in the change of power in the Latin American republic.”
Americanist Pavel Koshkin suggested that the passage of the Russian tanker to Cuba is a curtsy of the American authorities towards Russia in order to get concessions from the Russian leadership in other areas. In his opinion, Trump has not lost hope to settle the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through dialog with Moscow, and also counts on the Russians’ assistance in ending hostilities in the Middle East. “At the moment, the White House’s top priority is to resolve the Iranian crisis, which is causing fuel prices to rise. Therefore, the Americans do not want to disperse their forces. As soon as the Iran problem is solved, there will be clarity on other global American foreign policy priorities,” the expert believes.
In addition, Koshkin continues, against the background of Middle Eastern events, Trump does not want to worsen the situation in Cuba. “Perhaps the delivery of Russian oil is a one-time humanitarian action to avoid accusations from the Democratic Party about the deliberate strangulation of the Cuban population. Under the Democratic administration, relations between Washington and Havana were relatively normal. It is still difficult to assess whether the Americans intend to change the power in the Latin American republic,” the Americanist believes. The expert also did not rule out that Cuba will be next after the Iranian problem is solved. According to him, with Trump’s extreme unpredictability, forecasting is very difficult.
