Cuban embargo condemned by UN for 33rd year

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn the American economic embargo of Cuba for a 33rd year.

Yet the vote, as Hurricane Melissa tore through the island nation, softened Washington’s isolation on a long-standing issue in the Caribbean while new friction grows around the American military buildup there.

The vote was 165-7, with 12 abstentions. Last year, it was 187-2, with ‘no’ votes from the United States and Israel and one abstention. This year, countries including Argentina, Ukraine and Hungary also opposed the measure. Such resolutions are not legally binding but reflect world opinion

“The United States government is satisfied to see so many countries send the regime a message that the international community will no longer tolerate” its activities, Ambassador Jeff Bartos said, after he expressed concern for Cuba and other countries in the storm’s path.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the US mounted a pressure campaign to influence the vote.

Rodríguez said his government had heard from other countries, mainly in Europe, that the US State Department was encouraging them to vote against the resolution. In response, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday that “the Cuban regime does not deserve the backing of America’s democratic allies”.

The vote happened not only as the hurricane raged but as the Trump administration intensifies its campaign against drug trafficking in the waters off South America. That military buildup, Rodríguez said Wednesday, is “aggressive, extraordinary and unjustified”.

The moves have strained ties with US allies in the region and opened speculation that Washington aims to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The United States has charged him with narcoterrorism, while he has accused the US of trying to destabilise his country and gain control of its oil reserves.

Cuba, meanwhile, has struggled since 2020 with an economic and energy crisis. Its gross domestic product has shrunk, and its 10 million residents have endured blackouts, food shortages and inflation. There have been waves of protests, and hundreds of thousands of Cubans have migrated, many to the United States.

Cuban officials have blamed the economic squeeze on COVID-19 shutdowns, stricter US sanctions and other factors. The island’s communist government says US sanctions cost the country more than US$7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025, substantially more than the year before.

The embargo was imposed in 1960 after Fidel Castro led a revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and nationalised properties belonging to US citizens and corporations.

In 2016, Cuban President Raul Castro and Democratic President Barack Obama officially restored relations. That year, the US abstained, for the first time, on the General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the embargo.

Under Obama’s successor, Republican Donald Trump, the US again voted against the resolution in 2017 and ever since.

Sanctions increased significantly during Trump’s first term, continued under his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, and were tightened again after Trump returned to office this year.

AP