The ambassador Jeffrey A. Bartos, the United States representative for UN Management and Reform, condemned this Wednesday before the Security Council the privileges of the Cuban elite while the people of the island suffer from hunger, during an open debate on food insecurity convened by Denmark.
The forum, titled "Food Under Fire: The Role of the Security Council in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises," provided Bartos with the platform to once again highlight the Cuban regime before the most powerful body of the UN, just weeks after the diplomatic offensive in July.
"The scandalous accusations from Cuba are an attempt to evade responsibility for decades of corruption and poor economic management," the diplomat asserted.
"While the Cuban people face shortages, the regime's elites live opulent lifestyles, and the government continues to squander resources on luxury tourism complexes and hotels that remain empty," he emphasized.
Bartos also pointed directly at the Business Administration Group S.A., GAESA, the business conglomerate controlled by the Armed Forces, citing news reports which indicate that this entity and its subsidiaries have accumulated over 18 billion dollars in bank accounts abroad.
That figure comes from financial documents leaked and analyzed by the BBC and the newspaper Miami Herald, which estimated the assets of the conglomerate at approximately 17.894 billion dollars in March 2024, with about 14.467 billion deposited in bank accounts.
The U.S. Mission to the UN summarized Washington's stance in unequivocal terms: "While the Cuban people starve, Cuba's leaders continue to live opulent lifestyles."
Bartos also emphasized that the United States remains one of the main providers of food and humanitarian aid to the Cuban people, and accused the regime of lying at the UN to evade its responsibility for what he described as decades of brutal economic mismanagement.
"It is not surprising that Cuba continues to evade responsibility for decades of brutal economic mismanagement by lying at the UN," concluded the American diplomat.
The intervention this Wednesday is part of a sustained diplomatic campaign by the Trump administration against Havana in multilateral forums during 2026.
The most direct antecedent was the extraordinary session of the General Assembly on July 7, where Bartos and Ambassador Mike Waltz denounced the blackouts in Cuba and the situation of over 800 political prisoners.
On that occasion, Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla attempted to interrupt Bartos' speech twice, and he did the same with Waltz's address, through points of order that the Assembly presidency rejected.
The UN Assembly then approved the opening of the debate on the embargo with 136 votes in favor, nine against, and 30 abstentions, marking the lowest level of support for Cuba in more than three decades in this type of voting.
The U.S. Southern Command pointed to GAESA as a regional threat in mid-August, and U.S. congress members have called for the freezing of its assets, making the Cuban military conglomerate one of the primary targets of Washington's pressure on Havana.
On May 7th, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against GAESA and its CEO, Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Donald Trump on May 1st, titled "Imposition of sanctions on those responsible for repression in Cuba and for threats to national security and U.S. foreign policy."
Rubio described the business conglomerate of the FAR as "the heart of the kleptocratic communist system of Cuba," as it controls between 40% and 70% of the formal Cuban economy, including hotels, ports, remittances, and foreign trade.
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