News blog about US politics
Oil for Cuba: US government suddenly eases blockade
Updated February 25, 2026 – 7:57 p.mReading time: 6 minutes
Trump eases oil restrictions on Cuba. Brussels relies on the word of the US President. All developments in the news blog.
US President Donald Trump has suffered another setback in his promised mass deportation of migrants. US federal judge Brian Murphy declared on Wednesday that the practice of deporting foreigners without residency rights to third countries in an expedited manner was unlawful. Those affected have little opportunity to claim protection from persecution or torture, said the district judge in Boston. However, he suspended the ruling’s entry into force for 15 days to give the government time to appeal given the importance of the case.
The ruling follows a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security
back. This stipulated that migrants can also be deported to countries that were not named in their original deportation notices – for example to South Sudan, Libya or El Salvador. According to the regulation, this is permitted if there are diplomatic assurances of non-reprisal measures. In addition, those affected must be informed at least six hours before their departure. The plaintiffs argued that this violated their fundamental rights because they had no chance to raise concerns about their safety in these third countries.
The US government is easing restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba for humanitarian reasons. The Treasury Department in Washington announced on Wednesday that it was a measure of “solidarity with the Cuban people,” but that the government in Havana was not allowed to benefit from the easing. The economic and energy crisis in Cuba has worsened massively due to the US blockade of oil deliveries from Venezuela.
Communist-ruled Cuba is in its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There have been five nationwide power outages since the end of 2024, some of which lasted several days. The Caribbean state, which is only about 145 kilometers from the southern tip of the US state of Florida, has been subject to a US economic embargo since 1962.
