US and Cuban officials erupt in shouting match at UN over Cuba embargo
Washington's oil squeeze on Havana and a looming General Assembly vote turned a routine diplomatic session into a public standoff.
US and Cuban officials traded accusations and raised voices on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, in the latest public flare-up between the two governments. The row began when US Ambassador Mike Waltz took the podium to speak against an annual resolution, due for a vote this week, that condemns Washington's long-running economic embargo on Cuba.
Waltz was laying out what he described as years of corruption under Cuba's socialist government when members of the Cuban delegation, including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, began pounding their table and calling for a point of order. As UN officials tried to restore order, Rodríguez walked toward the front of the hall and called Waltz a liar. Waltz shot back with a blunt warning that Cuban officials should understand who they were dealing with. Diplomatic exchanges at the UN are usually far more measured, which is why the scene drew attention.
The timing matters. President Donald Trump announced in late January that the US would impose tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba. That threat has effectively choked off fuel imports to the island, and the resulting power cuts have disrupted cooking, water supply, internet access and telephone service. Cuba was already grappling with entrenched economic and financial problems before the latest pressure campaign began.
Havana argues that Washington's demand that it open its economy to private investment clashes with the sanctions that make such opening harder. The United States, for its part, is using its "maximum pressure" approach to push for political change. Tuesday's clash followed a similar confrontation a week earlier, when Waltz and Cuba's counterpart, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, faced off outside a US-hosted panel of Cuban dissidents and former prisoners.
The stakes now shift to the vote itself. The annual resolution criticises the US pressure policy and has drawn broad support for 34 years. Last year it passed 165 to 7, with 12 abstentions, and Argentina, Ukraine and Hungary voted against it for the first time. Washington has been lobbying member states in corridor conversations and public events to change their votes. For readers tracking energy markets and global diplomacy, the outcome will show how far US economic pressure can move the international majority, and how long Cuba can absorb a fuel shortage without a shift in policy.
Read the original report and video coverage here: WION News.
