The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, demanded this Tuesday at the General Assembly that the Cuban regime free its political prisoners, allow for genuine economic freedom, and return to the Cuban people the rights that have been taken from them for decades.
The intervention took place during a special session convened by Cuba to discuss the U.S. embargo, which was ultimately approved with 136 votes in favor, 9 against, and 30 abstentions.
Waltz reframed the debate from his very first sentence: "Much has been said about the blockade today, and indeed there is a blockade before all of us: the blockade that the Cuban regime ruthlessly imposes on its own people, decade after decade."
The session coincided with the third total collapse of the Cuban electrical system in 2026, a circumstance that the ambassador seized to illustrate the hypocrisy of the regime.
"Sadly, Cuba is once again in the dark. There is a new blackout across the island. Yet it always seems that there is light and electricity for the regime, for the dictatorship. Right now, there is electricity in the Castro family compound. There, there is indeed light,” he pointed out.
The most striking moment of the speech came when Waltz displayed photographs of Cuban political prisoners before the delegates, reading their names aloud. He mentioned Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement, whose five-year sentence ends on July 9; Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo Pérez, rapper co-author of "Patria y Vida," sentenced to nine years; Duannis León Taboada, a 24-year-old poet sentenced to 14 years and currently in solitary confinement at Combinado del Este; and the brothers Jorge and Martín Perdomo, whose detention has been condemned by the UN itself, which has called for their release.
"They are not violent, they do not have weapons. What they carry are flowers, and they write poetry and songs, and for that reason, the regime tries to eliminate them by putting them in prison," Waltz stated.
The ambassador also challenged the narrative of a total embargo, pointing out that humanitarian assistance from Canada, China, the European Union, Spain, Russia, and the UN itself reaches the island without hindrance, and that a tanker recently transported 750,000 barrels of oil to Cuba. "There is no American blockade. The only embargo is the guillotine that the regime holds over the heads of its own citizens," he asserted.
Waltz also denounced that GAESA, the military conglomerate that controls nearly 70% of the Cuban economy, manages a fiduciary fund of 18 billion dollars from which "not a cent goes to the Cuban people," and he accused the regime of appropriating the salaries of doctors sent abroad and of Cubans recruited to fight in Ukraine.
He also asked how it is possible that there is no fuel for hospitals, but there is for the Castro family's private jet, whose fortune would include, according to his claim, 700 mansions in Cuba, the Costa del Sol, and Moscow.
The speech was marked by two interruptions from the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla through points of order, both rejected by the Assembly's presidency.
In the first instance, Rodríguez called Waltz a "liar" and claimed that the UN "is not a Green Beret camp." Waltz responded unperturbed: "The truth offends, and the truth is not disrespectful."
In his own remarks, Rodríguez reiterated that the conversations between Cuba and the U.S. show no progress and estimated the damages from the embargo between March 2025 and February 2026 at 8.103 billion dollars, with a total accumulated impact of 178.7 billion.
The result of 136 votes in favor of the debate is significantly lower than the 165 that Cuba received in the annual vote in October 2025, reflecting the impact of Washington's intense diplomatic campaign.
The nine countries that voted against were the U.S., Argentina, Costa Rica, Israel, Morocco, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, Paraguay, and Ukraine.
Waltz concluded his speech with a direct appeal to the delegates: "Stand with the Cuban people, do not support the regime that has shattered this country. You cannot do both at the same time. The time has come to make a decision."
Filed under: