U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) recently supported a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank to deny a roughly $800 million loan to Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the Mexican state-owned petroleum company managed and operated by the Mexican government that is supplying free fuel to the Communist Cuban regime.
“I am writing in response to the fantastic news that the Export-Import Bank of the United States has decided to uphold human rights in the Western Hemisphere and protect the interest of the American taxpayer,” wrote Rep. Salazar in an Oct. 5 letter sent to the bank’s President and Chair Reta Jo Lewis. “The bank’s decision… is excellent and appropriate. I am pleased at least one part of the administration is committed to enforcing United States law as stipulated in the Helms-Burton LIBERTAD Act.”
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, which became public law in 1996 to strengthen and continue the United States embargo against Cuba. The congresswoman says that with Mexico sending free oil to Cuba, the country is directly bankrolling the Cuban regime’s oppression of its people.
“The President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, began sending free gasoline to Cuba after he gave dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel the red-carpet treatment in September 2021,” Rep. Salazar wrote. “AMLO is trying to replace the fuel imports Cuba has lost from their corrupt allies in Venezuela and their distracted, war-waging friends in Russia. This irresponsible policy is bankrupting the once successful Pemex.”
The lawmaker added that any free fuel that Cuba receives is money the country won’t have to spend on imports and instead can buy weapons from Russia, China, and Iran “to keep their suffering people oppressed.”
Rep. Salazar also pointed out that if Pemex begins selling oil to Cuba for fuel, then the company would be in violation of the LIBERTAD Act, which she wrote must be enforced.
“Please keep the pressure on Pemex so they stop this irresponsible and harmful policy once and for all,” wrote the congresswoman. “This decision by the Export-Import Bank is an example to the rest of the United States government on how to stand up for human rights in our hemisphere; I hope people are watching.”