It was just a few blocks from Mexico City’s imposing art deco Monument to the Revolution where, 71 years ago, another historic revolution was forged.
Beginning in the summer of 1955, a young Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara holed up together in a two-story working-class apartment building to plan the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Mexicans share stories about how men rowing on a lake in verdant Chapultepec Park or taking turns shooting in a town on the outskirts of the capital. Both were briefly imprisoned in Mexico City for possession of illegal firearms. Then, in November 1956, the men left the Mexican coast with 80 other revolutionaries on the yacht Granma, returning to Cuba, where they would change the course of the island’s history for generations to come.
Why do we write this?
Mexico’s diplomatic support for Cuba has long buoyed the communist island. It also helps Mexico assert its independence from the United States.
That laid the foundation for Cuba’s longest uninterrupted diplomatic relationship in Latin America. Mexico is considered, even by Fidel Castro, an inspiration of the Cuban Revolution, and has long taken pride in the fact that its revolution, at the beginning of the 20th century, inspired Cuba’s decades later. Across the ideological spectrum of governments that have led the country since it became a democracy in 2000, Mexico has remained a relatively firm friend of Cuba.
But as the United States increases pressure on Latin American governments under President Donald Trump’s new foreign policy approach, which sees the region as part of his sphere of influence, Cuba has become something of a thorn in the side of U.S.-Mexico relations. Following the U.S. military capture of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in January, the Trump administration turned its attention to the communist island that for years was supported economically by Venezuelan oil.
But last year, it was Mexico that sent the most oil to Cuba, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo bristled at a U.S. executive order issued Jan. 29 that threatened foreign nations with tariffs if they send shipments of desperately needed oil to Cuba. He had announced the day before that Mexico would temporarily suspend oil shipments to Cuba and that it was a “sovereign decision” that was not made under pressure from the United States.
The United States cannot “strangle people like this,” he said later, at a press conference on February 9, adding that Mexico will continue to support Cuba. His government sent two ships with some 814 tons of food and basic supplies to Havana that same week. On February 25, the US Treasury Department said it would authorize the sale of limited amounts of Venezuelan oil, which Washington now controls, to the Cuban private sector.
“Cuba is a special relationship for Mexico,” says Pía Taracena Gout, a professor of international relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. For many decades under the semi-authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled from 1929 to 2000, Mexico was able to show off its weakened revolutionary gifts by signaling its relationship with Cuba. And by supporting Cuba at the United Nations General Assembly every year since 1992, calling for an end to the US embargo officially in place since 1962, Mexico signaled to the world – and perhaps most importantly to its powerful northern neighbor – that sovereignty and non-intervention are fundamental to its worldview.
Cuba allows Mexico to “show its autonomy from the United States,” says Dr. Taracena.
Revolution by revolution
Mexico was one of the first countries in the world to carry out a postcolonial revolution, overthrowing a 30-year dictatorship in the early 20th century and ushering in social, agrarian and political reforms. When the Cuban revolution broke out in 1959, before Fidel Castro turned it into the communist project it would become, the revolution was immensely popular among Mexicans. Many saw themselves reflected in the Caribbean island’s achievements and even questioned whether their own government had gone far enough in the distribution of land and wealth.
“Cuba was always a kind of mirror for Mexico to look at and reflect on: ‘What are we doing in our own country? Is it enough?'” says Renata Keller, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of a book on Mexico-Cuba-U.S. relations during the Cold War.
By the time Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl came down victorious from the Sierra Maestra in their fight for Cuban independence, Mexico’s leadership had moved away from its revolutionary peak in the 1930s. But the increasingly conservative PRI was able to maintain what is sometimes called its “perfect dictatorship,” in part by functioning as an umbrella party that included the far left. Supporting Cuba was an easy way to do it.
The Cuba-Mexico relationship evolved over the years, but pragmatism was a constant. In 1961, Mexico was at the forefront of protests at the UN against the failed US Bay of Pigs invasion, and in 1964 it was the only member of the Organization of American States to reject a US-led initiative to sever diplomatic relations with Havana.
But at the same time that Mexico publicly defended Cuba, it shared intelligence with the United States government, which was facilitated by maintaining an embassy in Havana.
Relations between Cuba and Mexico began to falter under center-right President Vicente Fox, who was the first democratically elected leader after the PRI lost power. Fox traveled to Cuba in 2002 and met with dissidents, angering the Cuban government. A month later, he hurried Fidel Castro out of an Extraordinary Summit of the Americas meeting before U.S. President George W. Bush arrived, and that same year he joined the U.N. majority in condemning Cuba’s human rights record.
Left-wing politicians and many members of the Mexican public were up in arms over the alleged violation of the non-intervention standards of Mexico’s foreign policy and its historic relationship with Cuba.
But future conservative leaders appeared to learn from Fox’s experience. Subsequent conservative presidents made official visits to the island to meet with then-president Raúl Castro and forgave about 70% of Cuba’s debt to Mexico in 2013.
“Mexico will always try to seek a relationship with Cuba,” says Dr. Taracena. “Perhaps those who are not ideologically aligned with the left have opened the door to listening more to Cuban dissidents, but in reality, Mexico’s role has to be that of mediator in the conflict with the United States, especially now that the pressure from Donald Trump is so strong.”
Careful balance
Sheinbaum has been referred to as “the Trump whisperer” for her ability to negotiate with the US president in a second term that has kept Mexico at the center of US goals to stop immigration and drug trafficking in the region.
She has avoided the enactment of sky-high tariffs through negotiations, despite multiple threats from Trump, and the US president has declared her “brave” and a “wonderful, very smart leader.”
But it could be overlooking the nuances of Mexico’s historical – sometimes “performative” – relationship with Cuba, and how much it benefits the United States, Dr. Keller says.
The island is in a downward economic spiral as international airlines cancel flights to cities across Cuba, hotels close due to electricity and food shortages, and government workers are laid off. An estimated 2.7 million people have left Cuba since 2020, amid a multi-year recession.
