Cuba accuses US of threatening countries ahead of UN embargo vote

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

Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez denounces US actions during a news conference in Havana on October 21, 2026 [Yamil Lage/AFP]

Cuba has accused the United States of threatening countries with tariffs, visa restrictions and other retaliatory measures in an effort to get them to change their votes on an upcoming United Nations resolution calling for an end to the long-running embargo against the island.

Every year, a majority in the UN General Assembly votes in favour of a nonbinding resolution seeking a stop to the US embargo, which began in the early 1960s.

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The embargo, considered the longest in modern history, has been credited with exacerbating economic hardship on the island.

But on Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that the administration of US President Donald Trump was seeking to pressure members of the UN General Assembly to vote against the resolution this year.

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

“It is a new and dangerous way of conducting multilateral diplomacy,” Rodriguez wrote in a statement on the social media platform X. “It reflects the impotence of those who know they are in the wrong and whose only remaining recourse is force.”

Rodriguez said US officials had threatened to suspend cooperation programmes, deny visas to government officials and their families, and even back opposition parties in upcoming elections if countries refused to change their positions.

He also accused the US of urging some countries to abstain or skip the vote altogether if they were unwilling to vote against Cuba.

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

Heightening pressure on Cuba

The allegations come amid escalating tensions between the two countries ahead of the vote on the resolution, expected to take place on October 27 or 28.

The Trump administration has long maintained that the Cuban government — not the embargo — is to blame for the country’s struggling economy, and it has called for regime change.

On Monday, Waltz accused Cuban diplomats of harassing and intimidating participants at a US-hosted panel on alleged human rights abuses in Cuba.

Cuba’s UN Ambassador Ernesto Soberon Guzman and other representatives had confronted Waltz as he left the event at UN headquarters in New York City.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Waltz said that, every year, the Cuban government “propagates a lie through its annual resolution”.

“It uses excuse after excuse to justify its oppression, to justify the misery of the Cuban people, and what we are doing here at the US Mission to the UN is exposing those lies,” he said.

In a separate briefing that day, Waltz also acknowledged that Washington had been lobbying European countries to reconsider their support for the resolution. He pointed to allegations from Ukraine that Cuban nationals fighting for Russia weren’t being paid and that the money was instead going to the Cuban government.

“Yes, we’ve asked many of our European colleagues: Given this evidence from the Ukrainian government, how can they continue to vote for this resolution that is a propaganda tool for the Cuban regime and that is directly affecting their national security?” Waltz said.

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in support of resolutions calling for an end to the US economic embargo on Cuba almost every year since 1992. The embargo itself has been in place for more than six decades.

Since the start of 2026, the Trump administration has intensified pressure on Cuba by blocking oil supplies and threatening tariffs on countries supplying the country with fuel, leaving Cubans to face more severe shortages of essential supplies and prolonged blackouts.

哈瓦那方面表示，华盛顿威胁各国，如果它们拒绝投票反对谴责美国的禁运，将采取报复措施。

2026年10月21日，古巴外交部长布鲁诺·罗德里格斯在哈瓦那举行的新闻发布会上谴责美国的行为。[Yamil Lage/AFP]

古巴指责美国威胁其他国家，企图通过加征关税、实施签证限制和其他报复措施，迫使它们改变在即将出台的联合国决议上的投票立场。该决议呼吁结束对古巴的长期禁运。

每年，联合国大会的大多数代表都会投票赞成一项不具约束力的决议，该决议旨在停止美国自 20 世纪 60 年代初开始实施的禁运。

古巴在美国石油封锁下继续推进可再生能源计划（共3条，第1条）

问题 2（共 3 题）：为什么拉丁美洲国家要与以色列建立更紧密的联系？

佛罗里达州对古巴领导人劳尔·卡斯特罗发出逮捕令（共3条，此为第3条）

这场被认为是现代史上持续时间最长的禁运，加剧了该岛的经济困境。

但周三，古巴外交部长布鲁诺·罗德里格斯表示，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的政府正试图向联合国大会成员施压，要求他们今年投票反对该决议。

他解释说，美国国务卿马可·卢比奥和华盛顿驻联合国大使迈克·沃尔兹亲自领导了这场运动，他声称这场运动已经持续了数月之久。

罗德里格斯在社交媒体平台X上发表声明称：“这是一种新的、危险的多边外交方式。它反映了那些明知自己错了，却仍然只能诉诸武力的人的无能为力。”

罗德里格斯表示，美国官员威胁说，如果各国拒绝改变立场，美国将暂停合作项目，拒绝向政府官员及其家属发放签证，甚至在即将到来的选举中支持反对党。

他还指责美国敦促一些不愿投票反对古巴的国家弃权或干脆不参加投票。

半岛电视台已联系美国国务院和美国常驻联合国代表团征求意见，但截至发稿时尚未收到回复。

加大对古巴的压力

在预计于 10 月 27 日或 28 日举行的决议投票前夕，两国之间的紧张局势不断升级，而这些指控正是在此背景下提出的。

特朗普政府一直坚持认为，古巴经济困境的罪魁祸首是古巴政府，而不是禁运，并呼吁古巴政权更迭。

周一，沃尔兹指责古巴外交官骚扰和恐吓参加美国主办的关于古巴涉嫌侵犯人权问题的研讨会的与会者。

古巴常驻联合国代表埃内斯托·索贝隆·古斯曼和其他代表在沃尔兹离开位于纽约联合国总部的活动现场时与他发生了冲突。

事后，沃尔兹在接受记者采访时表示，古巴政府每年都会“通过年度决议散布谎言”。

他说：“它用一个又一个借口来为其压迫行为辩护，为古巴人民的苦难辩护，而我们在美国驻联合国代表团所做的，就是揭露这些谎言。”

在当天另一次简报会上，沃尔兹也承认，华盛顿一直在游说欧洲国家重新考虑他们对该决议的支持。他指出，乌克兰方面指控，为俄罗斯作战的古巴国民没有得到报酬，这些钱反而流向了古巴政府。

“是的，我们已经问过很多欧洲同行：鉴于乌克兰政府提供的这些证据，他们怎么能继续投票支持这项决议呢？这项决议是古巴政权的宣传工具，并且直接影响到他们的国家安全。”沃尔兹说道。

自 1992 年以来，联合国大会几乎每年都以压倒性多数投票支持呼吁结束美国对古巴经济封锁的决议。而这项封锁本身已经持续了六十多年。

自 2026 年初以来，特朗普政府通过封锁石油供应和威胁对向古巴供应燃料的国家征收关税，加大了对古巴的压力，导致古巴人面临更严重的必需品短缺和更长时间的停电。