diff --git a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/strptime.pyx b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/strptime.pyx
index a48c3365947dc..ce4d3a4ef8e02 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/tslibs/strptime.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/tslibs/strptime.pyx
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ import time
 import locale
 import calendar
 import re
-import datetime
 
 from _thread import allocate_lock as _thread_allocate_lock
 
@@ -13,6 +12,7 @@ import pytz
 import numpy as np
 from numpy cimport int64_t
 
+cimport cpython.datetime as datetime
 
 from pandas._libs.tslibs.np_datetime cimport (
     check_dts_bounds, dtstruct_to_dt64, npy_datetimestruct)