Just a few days before the vote in the UN General Assembly on the Cuban resolution against the embargo, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Juan Pablo Segura, published a strong message directed at the regime: "It's time for reforms, not more talk."
The official shared on his official X account an image featuring the seal of the Department of State, accompanied by the subtitle "Countering the resolution led by Cuba at the UN General Assembly" and a photo referencing Cuban political prisoners.
"Hundreds of political prisoners continue to be unjustly detained in Cuba. The regime takes advantage of the annual UN vote on the embargo to justify its refusal to implement political reforms," wrote Segura.
The official went further by stating that voting in favor of the Cuban resolution amounts to supporting the dictatorship: “Supporting the resolution of the regime's farce means rewarding tyranny and prolonging the suffering of these political prisoners.”
The message is the most recent development in an intense diplomatic campaign that Washington has carried out throughout the week leading up to the vote, scheduled for October 28.
On Thursday, the Chargé d'Affaires of the United States Embassy in Barbados, Eastern Caribbean, and the OECS, Karin Sullivan, published an article explicitly addressed to the governments of the Eastern Caribbean urging them to reject Cuba's resolution against the embargo.
“Why are the lights going out? Because the incompetent regime puts itself first,” Sullivan pointed out.
Two days earlier, Segura had already warned that the regime is desperately clinging to power instead of implementing political and economic reforms that would benefit the people.
“Avoids their annual vote on the embargo at the UN to claim that the international community is on their side, in order to continue enriching those in power while exploiting their own people,” she said on X.
He also accused the ruling elite of spending in one day what most Cubans earn in months, pointing to the military conglomerate GAESA as the center of a "kleptocracy" with $20 billion in illicit assets.
The U.S. pressure has had visible effects. Miguel Díaz-Canel himself admitted on Wednesday, during his program on Radio Rebelde, that "there are people who will change their vote because they are intimidated" by the pressures from Washington.
Germany, which has supported the Cuban resolution without interruption since 2002, is considering changing its position for the first time in 24 years. The German Secretary of State Géza Andreas von Geyr communicated earlier this month that the stance "has not yet been decided."
Since 1992, Havana has presented each year the resolution, which is not binding for the U.S. Congress — the only authority with the power to modify the embargo. In 2025, it experienced a historic drop in positive votes, with 165 in favor, seven against and 12 abstentions.
A coalition of more than 1,000 Cuban democratic organizations, led by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance and UNPACU, has already called on democratic governments to reject or abstain in the vote next Tuesday.
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