UN General Assembly Votes on Condemning US Embargo on Cuba Amid Public Clashes

The United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a resolution condemning the long-running US economic embargo on Cuba, as the Trump administration steps up its campaign to undermine the island's socialist government. That campaign has included threats of military intervention.

The resolution, which criticizes what it calls Washington's "maximum pressure policy," has come before the 193-member body for 34 consecutive years. Each time it has drawn overwhelming backing. Last year's tally was 165 in favor and 7 against, with 12 abstentions.

Passage by a wide margin is expected again. What remains unclear is whether the administration's open effort to sway the outcome will produce more opposition or abstentions than in past years, including among key countries and Western allies. The resolutions are not legally binding, but they serve as a gauge of world opinion.

The vote arrives as Cuba struggles with deepening financial crises while the United States tightens an already harsh economic squeeze. Last week, President Donald Trump again raised the possibility of US military intervention, saying American warships could stop in Cuba on their way back from the Iran war.

Tensions between the two governments have spilled into public view at the UN. On Tuesday, US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez got into a shouting match on the Assembly floor during debate on the embargo resolution.

Soon after Waltz began criticizing the Cuban government, Rodríguez walked to the podium, called him a liar and tried to secure a "point of order" from the official presiding over the session. As UN security and staff moved to step in, Waltz said: "This individual needs to back away from this podium. He's not going to intimidate me in the United States of America." He added: "You understand who you're dealing with? This is America. Back up."

Rodríguez responded in a post on X, reminding Waltz that he was speaking at the UN and not at a White House national security meeting. He said the US government had launched "another desperate attempt to justify its economic aggression against Cuba and its criminal energy blockade."

A week earlier, Waltz had a similar confrontation with Cuban diplomat Ernesto Soberón Guzmán outside a US-hosted panel featuring Cuban dissidents and former prisoners, which aimed to highlight allegations of repression by the island's government. The incidents mark a clear break from the diplomatic decorum usually expected at the UN.

The embargo was first imposed in 1960, after Fidel Castro led a revolution that overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista and nationalized property owned by US citizens and corporations. Cuba has since endured decades of economic and financial hardship. It is now being pushed toward a breaking point after Trump, a Republican, announced in late January that he would impose tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba. The warning has effectively cut off fuel to the island, causing widespread blackouts that disrupt cooking, water supply, internet and telephone service.