HAVANA (AFP) — Two Mexican navy vessels carrying almost 1,200 tons of humanitarian aid arrived in Cuba on Saturday in the second such shipment in a month as the island endures intense United States pressure.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to starve Cuba of oil after the American military’s ouster of autocrat Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, which had been the communist nation’s main supplier of the commodity.

Earlier this week his administration eased what amounts to an energy blockade, allowing oil shipments to private companies in Cuba but not the government or the military.

The Mexican navy ships Papaloapan and Huasteco, which were dispatched Tuesday by the leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum, were seen arriving in the port of Havana early Saturday.

The Mexican foreign ministry said the ships are carrying 1,193 tons of aid for the civilian population, including 23 tons of food donated by everyday Mexican people as part of an aid drive.

In the first Mexican aid shipment, two ships arrived on 12 February carrying 814 tons of fresh and powdered milk, meat, beans, rice and personal hygiene items.

Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, have made no secret of their desire to bring about regime change in Havana.

The Republican leader has said Cuba is “ready to fall.”

The island of 9.6 million inhabitants, under a US trade embargo since 1962, has for years been mired in a severe economic crisis marked by extended power cuts and shortages of fuel, medicine and food.

It has now also been cut off from critical oil supplies from Venezuela and from Mexico under the threat of US tariffs.

The resulting shortages have threatened to plunge Cuba into complete darkness, with power plants struggling to keep the lights on.