Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime was crucial to propping up America’s closest Communist neighbor, Cuba, for many years — but with the despot now in a New York prison, U.S. lawmakers and analysts are turning their attention to Mexico, a top U.S. ally and trading partner that has quietly taken Venezuela’s place.

As of January, Mexico reportedly accounted for 13,000 barrels per day, or 44%, of Cuba’s 2025 oil imports, the top factor keeping what some lawmakers describe as a teetering economy barely afloat. With renewed trade talks approaching in July, Republican lawmakers and conservative analysts are calling for increased pressure on Mexico to cut off Cuba’s oil lifeline. 

The Trump administration is also weighing instituting a maritime blockade on oil imports to Cuba, according to Politico. The outlet noted that the move would be an escalation of its previously-stated plan to cut off imports from Venezuela, where Maduro’s former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is now acting president. Such a blockade could spur crisis in the country and lead to the economic collapse of the Castro/Diaz-Canel regime for which much of the U.S. diaspora has long hoped.

«The Cuban government was, even before this action with Maduro, probably at the weakest point that the regime has been in the last 65 years,» said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., the only Cuban-born member of Congress.

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«This just makes them weaker. My one concern is that it appears that Mexico is now trying to prop them up. And so, the oil that they were receiving from Venezuela is now being supplanted by oil being received by Mexico.»

The Florida Republican said Mexico is in such a position in part because it is «governed by a Marxist,» casting criticism of socialist-party-aligned President Claudia Sheinbaum.

«The oil that they were receiving from Venezuela is now being supplanted by oil being received by Mexico,» he said.

«It doesn’t matter that [the Miguel Diaz-Canel] regime [in Cuba] has been suppressing and oppressing its people for 65 years, as long as they have the right ideology.»

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Gimenez said that Congress could use upcoming intracontinental trade talks over the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to pressure Sheinbaum to stop supporting the dictatorship just 90 miles from Fort Zachary Taylor, at the southern tip of his district.

Cuba is already experiencing rolling blackouts, inability to feed its people, medical shortages and a nosedive in tourism due to those developments, he said.

«Would it be okay for us to kind of nudge them over the edge? I don’t know a problem with that,» he quipped.

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Andres Martinez-Fernandez, a Latin America and national security policy analyst who leads the Heritage Foundation’s research on the region, told Fox News Digital that U.S. tolerance for Mexico’s new position may not last.

«It’s a major issue,» he said, adding the Mexico-Cuba relationship got to «worrying levels» under Sheinbaum’s predecessor and now involves a Cuban medical program he called «forced slavery for revenue» involving Cuban doctors arriving in Mexico and sending remittances home – much of which can get funneled to the regime.

If Mexico City wants to continue aiding Havana, it had better prepare for «severe pushback,» he said, similarly citing the USMCA negotiations that Gimenez mentioned.

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Those aspects, along with President Donald Trump’s discontent with Sheinbaum’s resistance to U.S. action against cartels could come to a head, he suggested, calling Mexico’s attitude «mendacious and duplicitous.»

«It says nothing good if they decide, to maintain this overt support for the Cuban regime as we continue to see this inadequate action on the cartel front.»

Trump declared earlier this month that there will be «no more oil or money going to Cuba – Zero» and the Department of War has been seizing sanctioned «shadow-fleet» oil tankers.

A White House official said Cuba is failing of its own volition and that its rulers suffered a major setback in losing support from the ousted Maduro regime. Trump believes Cuba should make a deal «before it is too late.»

Meanwhile, the aforementioned USMCA talks are scheduled to take place in July, when the trilateral trade deal undergoes a scheduled review.

The U.S. is likely to seek additional concessions from Mexico and Canada amid trade disputes, the Center for Strategic and International Studies predicted last year, with the interceding Mexico-Cuba development likely to further invigorate such demands.

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A man waves a Cuban flag at a protest. (Yamil Lage/Getty Images)

The Sheinbaum administration, which did not respond to a request for comment, has reportedly painted its shipments as «humanitarian aid» for the Cuban people.

If Mexico continues oil shipments, it may lead to additionally tense relations between the U.S. and its southern neighbor, already frayed by Trump’s disdain for Sheinbaum’s steadfast refusal to allow American intercession against drug cartels.

If the shipments slacken, that may portend well for the aforementioned upcoming trade negotiations.

As for Cuba, many pro-democracy voices, particularly among the South Florida diaspora, hope the 66-year Castro/Diaz-Canel regime is not long for this world.

Martinez-Fernandez added the regime is likely facing one of the most difficult moments in its history; Mexico’s role aside.

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In the 1990s, Cuba lost its larger «patron,» the Soviet Union, he said, and hit a rough patch until Hugo Chavez took power in 1999.

He added that while there has been Western concern about a Chinese foothold there, Beijing appears to have largely «cut ties» and said «there’s nothing new here.»

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«I do think that there is a likely need for additional developments before we see… That kind of next step collapse of the regime itself,» he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Commerce Department and the Palacio Nacional for comment.

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security was already a question for some Democrats before the killing of Alex Pretti.

But Saturday’s killing by federal agents gave Democrats who were on the fence about supporting the upcoming government funding plan a reason to solidify their opposition. And the killing only hardened those who were opposed to funding DHS before.

From a political standpoint, Democrats are compelled to fight this. Otherwise, their base will balk. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., endured brickbats from the liberal base last March when he and a group of other Democratic senators helped Republicans clear a filibuster to avoid a shutdown.

Progressives raged at Schumer. And the Senate’s top Democrat suddenly found himself crossways with House Democratic leaders who expected him to mount more of a fight over government funding.

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The liberal base certainly got that this fall as Democrats withheld their votes to fund the government and fought over expiring Obamacare subsidies. The government shuttered for 43 days. But Democrats never earned a restoration of Obamacare subsidies. The Senate took a vote related to restoring the subsidies. Nothing happened. The House actually passed a bill re-upping the subsidies for three years. But the issue remains at an impasse.

Despite the fall brawl, Democratic congressional leaders faced a narrow path to walk for this funding round. They still felt pressure from the left to oppose money for DHS, long before the killing of Renee Good and Pretti. But Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not go to the mat to oppose funding this time. They wanted to finesse this, believing that a shutdown was bad politics for them after the fall experience. After all, Democrats never scored precisely what they wanted. By the same token, Schumer and Jeffries didn’t wade deeply into the funding fight, perhaps afraid of breaking a fragile truce on spending bills.

That all changed Saturday. Democrat after Democrat published statements that they wouldn’t vote to fund DHS. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, caucuses with the Democrats. He was one senator instrumental to helping re-open the government last fall. King said he couldn’t support funding this time around.

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So unless something changes by 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Friday, Jan. 30, 78% of the federal government will lack money to operate. The six-bill, $1.2 trillion spending package doesn’t only fund the Department of Homeland Security, but it also provides money for the Pentagon, Health and Human Services, Labor & Housing programs, Transportation and Education.

The DHS bill was radioactive in the House. So the House broke that bill off from the rest of the package. The House approved the DHS funding measure 220-207 with seven Democratic yeas. The House approved the remaining bills 341-88.

The House then married the six bills together in one package, sent it to the Senate and left town.

There was some grumbling from senators that this was a «take it or leave it» package.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, announced he won’t support the DHS funding bill following the fatal shooting in Minneapolis and as federal agents enter his home state. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

And after the shooting, all bets were off. On Saturday, Schumer declared that «Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.»  

Democrats implored Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to break off the DHS funding bill from the rest of the spending package and handle that separately. Otherwise, they would oppose the entire plan.

On Monday, Schumer signaled that «Senate Democrats have made clear we are ready to quickly advance the five appropriations bills separately from the DHS funding bill before the January 30th deadline.» He also said that «Republicans will again be responsible for another government shutdown.»

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Well, this is an amalgamated appropriations bill sent over from the House. Not a Kit-Kat bar. You just can’t break off one piece of it.

In short, what Schumer is proposing would spark a government shutdown. It’s not clear that there are the votes to do what Schumer is suggesting. And doubtful that the Senate would have the time. That’s to say nothing of getting the House on the same page before the deadline. Moreover, the House would just have to magically accept the new Senate position. That’s probably not going to happen considering what the House went through just to pass that minibus spending bill.

And we have not even mentioned that most of the money that Democrats are crowing about for DHS is already out the door. In the One Big Beautiful Bill, Republicans approved $75 billion for border security and ICE through 2029. In that measure, Republicans converted «discretionary spending» (which Congress controls) into a «mandatory appropriation» through 2029. Yes, this tactic agitates Members of the Appropriations Committee. But this has been done before, notably by Democrats when approving Obamacare.

What Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is proposing would, in essence, trigger a shutdown. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

So going after DHS right now would have little impact on the funding for ICE. However, Democrats could demand certain «guardrails» and changes in policy for ICE.

From a parliamentary standpoint, ripping the six-bill package apart is a mess. First of all, the Senate must agree on a «motion to strike» the DHS section from the six-bill combo package. The Senate would have to vote on this. Or, in the interest of time, do this via unanimous consent. But because the «motion to strike» by itself is debatable, the issue could set up a possible filibuster. Sixty votes are needed to cut off debate on just that question alone – stripping the DHS provision from the rest of the overall bill.

It’s important that a motion to strike the DHS money from the rest of the bill does not mean that the remaining five bills are ready to go. The Senate would have to agree that this is the new bill. Senators would then have to overcome a filibuster once and then vote to pass the bill. Those floor mechanics get you well past the early Saturday morning deadline.

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Then the Senate must tangle with passing the standalone DHS funding bill by itself. That certainly isn’t going to be done by Saturday morning.

Moreover, none of these scenarios even addresses the House. If the Senate did approve the revamped five-bill spending package and the solitary DHS bill, the measures must return to the House. The House would have to vote on a «motion to concur» on the five-bill minibus. And then separately, on the solo DHS measure. That’s probably untenable in the House. Anything under this plan wouldn’t meet the early Saturday morning deadline. In addition, the House could glue the bills together another way and send it back to the Senate. Or, the House could even move to go to a conference committee and try to blend the bills into one.

There is no easy way out of this at such a late date. And that’s why you likely have a partial government shutdown at 12:00:01 a.m. ET on Saturday.

Despite ICE being funded by One Big Beautiful Bill, disruptions to other services loom ahead. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Even though ICE is funded thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill, there’s a big penalty and disruption and other services. TSA agents are unpaid again. That’s a major problem considering what they went through this fall – and coming on the heels of the monster winter storm which swept across the country in the past few days. Air traffic controllers would again face the lack of a paycheck as part of the transportation spending bill.

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Then, there are the politics. Who gets blamed? Republicans are concerned about losing support from voters based on the tactics of ICE. That’s why some Republicans are searching for some changes – but not ready to nuke the spending bill. Meantime, if the government shuts down thanks to Democrats withholding their votes, that may resonate with progressives. But it may hurt the party if Democrats are viewed as the party responsible for another shutdown.

This is a tough situation all around. And there’s not an obvious off-ramp.