U.S. President Donald Trump’s increasingly overt attempts to bring down the Cuban government are forcing Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum into a delicate diplomatic dance.

Mexico is the U.S.’s largest trading partner. It is also the primary supplier of oil to Cuba since the U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s crude.

Now, Sheinbaum must manage her relationship with a mercurial Trump, who has at times both praised her leadership and threatened to send the U.S. military into her country to combat drug trafficking — all while appeasing her left-wing party Morena, factions of which have historically aligned themselves with Cuba’s communist regime.

That balance became even more difficult for Sheinbaum this week following reports that Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, paused a shipment of oil headed for Cuba, which is grappling with shortages following the U.S. military action earlier this month in Venezuela. Asked about the suspension, the Mexican president said only that oil shipments are a “sovereign” decision and that future action will be taken on a “humanitarian” basis.

On Thursday, Trump ramped up the pressure, declared a national emergency over what he couched as threats posed by the Cuban government and authorized the use of new tariffs against any country that sells or provides oil to the island. The order gives the administration broad discretion to impose duties on imports from countries deemed to be supplying Cuba, dramatically raising the stakes for Mexico as it weighs how far it can go without triggering economic retaliation from Washington — or worse.

“It’s the proverbial shit hitting the fan in terms of the spillover effects that would have,” said Arturo Sarukhán, former Mexican ambassador to the U.S., referring to the possibility of a Pemex tanker being intercepted.

Sheinbaum still refuses to hit back too hard against Trump, preferring to speak publicly in diplomatic platitudes even as she faces new pressure. Her posture stands in marked contrast to Canada’s Mark Carney, whose speech at Davos, urging world leaders to stand up to Trump, went viral and drew a swift rebuke from the White House and threats of new tariffs.

But the latest episode is characteristic of Sheinbaum’s approach to Trump over the last year — one that has, so far, helped her avoid the kinds of headline-grabbing public ruptures that have plagued Carney, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Still, former Mexican officials say Trump’s threats — though not specific to Mexico — have triggered quiet debate inside the Mexican government over how much risk Sheinbaum can afford to absorb and how hard she should push back.

“My sense is that right now, at least because of what’s at stake in the counter-narcotics and law enforcement agenda bilaterally, I think that neither government right now wants to turn this into a casus belli,” Sarukhán added. “But I do think that in the last weeks, the U.S. pressure on Mexico has risen to such a degree where you do have a debate inside the Mexican government as to what the hell do we do with this issue?”

A White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the administration’s approach, said that Trump is “addressing the depredations of the communist Cuban regime by taking decisive action to hold the Cuban regime accountable for its support of hostile actors, terrorism, and regional instability that endanger American security and foreign policy.”

“As the President stated, Cuba is now failing on its own volition,” the official added. “Cuba’s rulers have had a major setback with the Maduro regime that they are responsible for propping up.”

Sheinbaum, meanwhile, responded to Trump’s latest executive order during her Friday press conference by warning that it could “trigger a large-scale humanitarian crisis, directly affecting hospitals, food supplies, and other basic services for the Cuban people.”

“Mexico will pursue different alternatives, while clearly defending the country’s interests, to provide humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people, who are going through a difficult moment, in line with our tradition of solidarity and respect for international norms,” Sheinbaum said.

The Mexican embassy in Washington declined further comment.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, in a post on X, accused the U.S. of “resorting to blackmail and coercion in an attempt to make other countries to join its universally condemned blockade policy against Cuba.”

The pressure on Sheinbaum to respond has collided with real political constraints at home. Morena has long maintained ideological and historical ties to Cuba, and Sheinbaum faces criticism from within her coalition over any move that could be seen as abandoning Havana.

At the same time, she has come under growing domestic scrutiny over why Mexico should continue supplying oil abroad as fuel prices and energy concerns persist at home, making the “humanitarian” framing both a diplomatic shield and a political necessity.

Amid the controversy over the oil shipment, Trump and Sheinbaum spoke by phone Thursday morning, with Trump describing the conversation afterward as “very productive” and praising Sheinbaum as a “wonderful and highly intelligent Leader.”

Sheinbaum’s remarks after the call point to how she is navigating the issue through ambiguity rather than direct confrontation, noting that the two did not discuss Cuba. She described it as a “productive and cordial conversation” and that the two leaders would “continue to make progress on trade issues and on the bilateral relationship.”

With the upcoming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade looming, even the appearance of defying Trump’s push to cut off Cuba’s oil lifelines carries the potential for economic and diplomatic blowback. It also could undo the quiet partnership the U.S. and Mexico have struck on border security and drug trafficking issues.

Gerónimo Gutiérrez, who served as Mexican ambassador to the U.S. during the first Trump administration, described Sheinbaum’s approach as “squish and muddle through.”

“She obviously is trying to tread carefully with Trump. She doesn’t want to irritate him with this matter,” Gutiérrez said, adding that “she knows that it’s a problem.”

Meanwhile, Cuba’s vulnerability has only deepened since the collapse of Venezuela’s oil support following this month’s U.S. operation that ousted President Nicolás Maduro. For years, Venezuelan crude served as a lifeline for the island, a gap Mexico has increasingly helped fill, putting the country squarely in Washington’s crosshairs as Trump squeezes Havana.

With fuel shortages in Cuba triggering rolling blackouts and deepening economic distress, former U.S. officials who served in Cuba and regional analysts warn that Trump’s push to choke off remaining oil supplies could hasten a broader collapse — even as there is little clarity about how Washington would manage the political, humanitarian or regional fallout if the island tips over the edge.

Trump has openly suggested that outcome is inevitable, telling reporters in Iowa on Tuesday that “Cuba will be failing pretty soon,” even as he pushed back on Thursday that the idea he was trying to “choke off” the country.

“The word ‘choke off’ is awfully tough,” Trump said. “It looks like it’s not something that’s going to be able to survive. I think Cuba will not be able to survive.”

The administration, however, has offered few details about what would come next, and Latin American analysts warn that the U.S. and Mexico are likely to face an influx of migrants — including to Florida and the Yucatán Peninsula — seeking refuge should Cuba collapse.

There is no evidence that the Trump administration has formally asked Mexico to halt oil shipments to Cuba. Trump’s executive order leaves it to the president’s Cabinet to determine whether a country is supplying oil to Cuba and the rate at which it should be tariffed — an unusual deferral of power for a president for whom tariffs are a favorite negotiating tool.

But former U.S. officials say that absence of an explicit demand to Mexico does not mean the pressure is theoretical.

Lawrence Gumbiner, who served as chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Havana during the first Trump administration, believes Washington would be far more likely to lean on economic pressure than the kind of military force it has used to seize Venezuelan oil tankers.

At the same time, the administration’s push on Venezuela began with a similar executive order last spring.

“There’s no doubt that the U.S. is telling Mexico to just stop it,” Gumbiner said. “I think there’s a much slimmer chance that we would engage our military to actually stop Mexican oil from coming through. That would be a last resort. But with this administration you cannot completely discount the possibility of a physical blockade of the island if they decide that it’s the final step in strangling the island.”