Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has accused US President Donald Trump of trying to “suffocate” the sanctions-hit country’s economy.

trump card sign An executive order issued Thursday threatens additional tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, the latest step by Washington to pressure Havana. The order claimed that the communist-ruled Cuban government was a ‘Unusual and extraordinary threat’ For the national security of the United States.

Díaz-Canel posted on social media on Friday that Trump planned to “suffocate” the Cuban economy by imposing tariffs on “countries that trade sovereign oil with Cuba” under “false and baseless pretexts.”

“This new measure exposes the fascist, criminal and genocidal nature of a group that hijacks the interests of the American people purely for personal ends,” he said, an apparent reference to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and a well-known anti-Cuban government hawk.

Cuba has suffered rolling blackouts due to fuel shortages and was cut off from vital oil supplies earlier this month when the United States kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a bloody nighttime military raid on the capital, Caracas. At least 32 members of the Cuban armed forces and intelligence services killed during the January 3 attack.

Since then, the United States has effectively taken control of Venezuela’s oil sector, and Republican Trump has threatened other left-wing governments in the region, pledging to stop oil shipments to Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared an “international emergency” on Friday in response to Trump’s move, which he said posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

The Venezuelan government also condemned the move in a statement on Friday, saying it violated international law and global business principles.

Al Jazeera’s Ed Augustine, reporting from the Cuban capital, called Trump’s announcement “a huge psychological blow,” noting that analysts called it “the most powerful economic blow the United States has ever dealt to Cuba.”

Days after Maduro was kidnapped and transferred to the United States, Trump urged Cuba to reach a deal “before it’s too late,” without specifying which deal he was referring to.

Trump posted on social media that Rubio could become Cuba’s president. “Sounds good to me!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“There is no solution”

In Havana, residents expressed anger at Trump’s tariff threats, which will only make life harder for Cubans already struggling under heightened U.S. sanctions.

“My food has gone bad. We have been without power since 6 a.m.,” Yenia Leon told Al Jazeera. “You can’t sleep. You have to buy food every day. There is no solution to the electricity problem,” she said.

“This is a war,” Lazaro Alfonso, an 89-year-old retired graphic designer, told The Associated Press, describing Trump as the “sheriff of the world” and saying he felt like he was living in the Wild West with everything going on.

Alfonso, who lived through a severe economic depression known as the “Special Period” after the Soviet Union cut aid in the 1990s, said Cuba’s current situation is even worse because of severe power outages and a lack of basic goods and fuel.

“The only thing missing here in Cuba is for the bombs to start falling,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum said she would seek alternatives to continue helping Cuba following Trump’s announcement. As Trump’s rhetoric intensifies, Mexico’s president decided this week to temporarily halt oil shipments to Cuba.

Mexico joined Russia as Cuba’s main fuel supplier after U.S. sanctions on Venezuela paralyzed crude oil shipments from Cuba.

Scheinbaum said cutting off oil shipments to Cuba could trigger a “far-reaching humanitarian crisis” on the island, affecting transportation, hospitals and food access. She did not say whether Mexico would reduce exports of oil or refined products to Cuba, which she said accounted for 1% of Mexico’s output.

“Our interest is that the Cuban people do not suffer,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she had directed the foreign minister to contact the U.S. State Department to better understand the scope of the executive order.

As of last month, Mexico supplied 44% of Cuba’s oil imports, Venezuela exported 33%, and Cuba got about 10% of its oil from Russia. Some of the oil also comes from Algeria, according to Financial Times data.

Last November, senior United Nations experts explain Longstanding U.S. sanctions on Cuba must be lifted because they “have a significant impact on all aspects of life.”

The United States imposed a near-total trade embargo on Cuba in 1962 in an effort to overthrow the government installed by Fidel Castro after he seized power in the 1959 revolution. Castro himself was the target of multiple assassinations by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Alaina Doohan, Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, said the “extensive regime of economic, trade and financial restrictions” against Cuba marks the longest-lasting unilateral sanctions policy in U.S. history.

She noted that Cuba lacks food, medicine, electricity, water, vital machinery and spare parts, and that skilled workers, including medical personnel, engineers and teachers, are increasingly migrating abroad, putting further pressure on the country.

The cumulative effect, Doohan said, “has serious consequences for the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, food, health and development.”