Cuba accuses US of threatening countries ahead of UN embargo vote

Havana says Washington is threatening countries with retaliation if they garbage to ballot against condemning its embargo.

Cuba has accused the United States of threatening countries with tariffs, visa restrictions and different retaliatory measures successful an effort to get them to alteration their votes connected an upcoming United Nations solution calling for an extremity to the long-running embargo against the island.

Every year, a bulk successful the UN General Assembly votes successful favour of a nonbinding solution seeking a halt to the US embargo, which began successful the aboriginal 1960s.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Cuba forges up with renewable vigor plans amid US lipid blockade
• list 2 of 3Why are Latin American countries gathering person ties with Israel?
• list 3 of 3Florida issues apprehension warrant for Cuban person Raul Castro

The embargo, considered the longest successful modern history, has been credited with exacerbating economical hardship connected the island.

But connected Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that the medication of US President Donald Trump was seeking to unit members of the UN General Assembly to ballot against the solution this year.

He explained that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Washington’s ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz were personally starring the campaign, which helium alleged had been going connected for months.

“It is simply a caller and unsafe mode of conducting multilateral diplomacy,” Rodriguez wrote successful a statement connected the societal media level X. “It reflects the impotence of those who cognize they are successful the incorrect and whose lone remaining recourse is force.”

Rodriguez said US officials had threatened to suspend practice programmes, contradict visas to authorities officials and their families, and adjacent backmost absorption parties successful upcoming elections if countries refused to alteration their positions.

He besides accused the US of urging immoderate countries to abstain oregon skip the ballot altogether if they were unwilling to ballot against Cuba.

Al Jazeera has reached retired to the US State Department and the US Mission to the UN for comment, but it did not person a reply by the clip of publication.

Heightening unit connected Cuba

The allegations travel amid escalating tensions betwixt the 2 countries up of the ballot connected the resolution, expected to instrumentality spot connected October 27 oregon 28.

The Trump medication has agelong maintained that the Cuban authorities — not the embargo — is to blasted for the country’s struggling economy, and it has called for authorities change.

On Monday, Waltz accused Cuban diplomats of harassing and intimidating participants astatine a US-hosted sheet connected alleged quality rights abuses successful Cuba.

Cuba’s UN Ambassador Ernesto Soberon Guzman and different representatives had confronted Waltz arsenic helium near the lawsuit astatine UN office successful New York City.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Waltz said that, each year, the Cuban authorities “propagates a prevarication done its yearly resolution”.

“It uses excuse aft excuse to warrant its oppression, to warrant the misery of the Cuban people, and what we are doing present astatine the US Mission to the UN is exposing those lies,” helium said.

In a separate briefing that day, Waltz besides acknowledged that Washington had been lobbying European countries to reconsider their enactment for the resolution. He pointed to allegations from Ukraine that Cuban nationals warring for Russia weren’t being paid and that the wealth was alternatively going to the Cuban government.

“Yes, we’ve asked galore of our European colleagues: Given this grounds from the Ukrainian government, however tin they proceed to ballot for this solution that is simply a propaganda instrumentality for the Cuban authorities and that is straight affecting their nationalist security?” Waltz said.

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly successful enactment of resolutions calling for an extremity to the US economical embargo connected Cuba astir each twelvemonth since 1992. The embargo itself has been successful spot for much than six decades.

Since the commencement of 2026, the Trump medication has intensified pressure connected Cuba by blocking lipid supplies and threatening tariffs connected countries supplying the state with fuel, leaving Cubans to look much terrible shortages of indispensable supplies and prolonged blackouts.