CUBA ACCUSES US OF THREATENING UN MEMBERS BEFORE EMBARGO VOTE

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening countries ahead of a United Nations vote on a resolution calling for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. Rodriguez said US officials had warned UN members of trade and economic sanctions if they supported the resolution. He also alleged that officials had threatened visa restrictions for government representatives and their families. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.

Rodriguez said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz had personally led a campaign to change countries’ votes for months. He accused US officials of threatening to suspend cooperation programmes and support opposition parties in forthcoming elections. Rodriguez said Washington had also urged countries unwilling to oppose the resolution to abstain or miss the vote. “It is a new and dangerous way of conducting multilateral diplomacy,” Rodriguez wrote on X.

Waltz had earlier urged countries to vote against the resolution, calling it “an excuse to justify (Cuba’s) oppression, to justify the misery of the Cuban people”. UN officials expect the vote on 27 or 28 October. The General Assembly has voted by wide margins for resolutions opposing the embargo each year since 1992, but the resolutions do not bind the US. The US has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than 60 years, and only Congress can lift it.