U.S. exports to Cuba reached $876.5 million from January through August 2026, a record total, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures reported by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. August alone accounted for $202.5 million, the highest monthly figure since 1992. Fuel led the shipments.
The council’s breakdown of Commerce Department statistics comes as President Donald Trump’s administration pursues its maximum-pressure campaign against Havana. Even as Washington tightens sanctions on the Cuban regime, authorized trade with the island has expanded.
U.S. exports to Cuba have already surpassed the 2025 total
In August 2025, U.S. exports to Cuba totaled $89.7 million. This August’s figure was more than twice that amount. Shipments through August also exceeded the $809.6 million exported during all of 2025 by about $67 million.
Alongside fuel, the export categories included humanitarian donations of food and medicine, meat, vehicles and other food products. The figures measure the value of goods shipped, rather than who ultimately consumed them.
Fuel accounts for the largest share
Cuba imported roughly $74.9 million in fuel from the United States in August, nearly 37% of the monthly total and 22% more than in July. Year-to-date fuel purchases stood at about $232 million, according to the council’s breakdown. Most shipments departed from Miami and the Houston-Galveston port area.
By volume, shipments peaked in July at 3.22 million barrels of petroleum products, more than four times June’s level, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Distillate fuel, mostly diesel, made up more than 82% of that volume.
According to calculations reported by 14ymedio, no supplier to Cuba — including Venezuela, Russia or Mexico — had shipped that much in a single month during the preceding decade.
Those figures stand in contrast to Miguel Díaz-Canel’s September 23 remarks on his program Criterio Compartido, where he said Cuba had gone nine months without receiving a fuel ship.
Who ultimately receives the fuel?
Washington authorizes these fuel sales for Cuba’s private sector through licenses and exceptions to the embargo. But Jorge Piñón, an energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, argues that state-owned Cupet remains the ultimate recipient, according to Diario de Cuba. The company was sanctioned by the United States in June.
Piñón has also questioned, in comments reported by 14ymedio, which entities other than Cupet or Cimex have the storage capacity to handle such volumes in Cuba. That question concerns the destination of the fuel after shipment; export totals alone do not establish the identity of the final user.
U.S. authorities have also reported suspected export violations. Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security intercepted 90 biodiesel shipments worth nearly $3 million at Port Everglades and the Port of Houston. The cargo was allegedly destined for ENETEC S.A., a Cuban fuel importer that the Treasury Department sanctioned in July. Havana denied state ties to the ENETEC shipments in statements previously covered by Cubanos por el Mundo.
Tighter sanctions also affect private businesses
A Cuban Assets Control Regulations amendment that took effect September 30 bars U.S. banks from maintaining accounts for Cuban private entrepreneurs and eliminates transactions known as “U-turn” transfers. The rule does not change family remittances.
Díaz-Canel responded on X by claiming that the measures were intended to inflict the greatest possible suffering on the Cuban people. Separately, Foreign Trade Minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga criticized the U.S. policy of selling fuel to Cuba’s private sector and argued that Washington is seeking to create economic dependence, according to 14ymedio.
Reforms unfold amid continued shortages
The trade figures follow the Cuban government’s approval in mid-June of 176 measures opening sectors such as energy, foreign trade, banking and agriculture to private and foreign investment, while removing size limits on private businesses.
Meanwhile, Cubans continue to face daily blackouts and an energy crisis, along with food and medicine shortages. Record imports have not, on their own, resolved those conditions.
What the figures establish — and what they do not
U.S. exports to Cuba are at record levels, with fuel the leading component. Washington says those fuel sales are intended for private businesses, while storage and distribution on the island remain heavily dependent on state infrastructure. How much of the imported fuel ultimately benefits the regime remains unresolved.
Adapted into American English from Cubanos por el Mundo’s original Spanish report. Featured image: illustrative recreation, not a documentary photograph. Image: Cubanos por el Mundo.
