United Nations, United States

UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that Cuba risks humanitarian "collapse" if it is denied oil, his spokesman said Wednesday as the United States threatens to cut energy supplies as part of a pressure campaign.

"The secretary-general is extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet," spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Communist Cuba has been under a US trade embargo for decades and relied on oil supplies from Venezuela until the American military ousted its socialist leader Nicolas Maduro last month.

President Donald Trump has since claimed he controls the country's oil and threatened to cut off Cuba, as well as impose tariffs on any other nation stepping in to help Havana.

He has said he wants to "make a deal" with Cuba's leadership, without saying what a deal might look like.

Trump, who has wielded US economic power for political goals, said Monday that Mexico would stop sending oil to Cuba -- which he described as "a failed nation."

The end of Mexican supplies would significantly deepen what is already Cuba's most serious economic crisis since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said Tuesday that Mexico would send humanitarian aid to Cuba this week and was seeking an agreement with Washington that would allow it to also send oil.

bjt-pel/dw