For 33 consecutive years, the U.S. government has tried—and failed—to convince the United Nations General Assembly to vote against an annual resolution condemning the economic blockade on Cuba.
Last year, the Trump administration made some headway following an aggressive lobbying effort, convincing five countries to join the U.S. and Israel in opposing the resolution, while 12 abstained and nine didn't vote. The UN voted 165-7 to condemn the blockade, compared to 187-2 in 2024.
This year, the Trump administration is doubling down on its pressure campaign to isolate Cuba, with U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz leading the charge at the UN. A staunch anti-communist crusader, Waltz shares the extreme views of the most hard-line figures in South Florida’s Cuban-American political establishment. Like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Waltz frequently invokes his Florida roots as a source of authority over an island that neither man has visited.
Though Waltz lost his job as national security advisor to Rubio in May 2025, there doesn’t appear to be any hard feelings between the two. As U.S. ambassador to the UN, Waltz has become one of Rubio’s most enthusiastic allies in the campaign to turn the world against Cuba.
Pre-Vote Political Theater
On Monday, Waltz hosted an invitation-only event at UN headquarters in New York aimed at helping persuade member states to withdraw their support for the resolution condemning U.S. sanctions.
The event, titled "Cuba Libre: The Oppression Havana Hides," featured a panel of exiles who accused Cuba's government of corruption and rights abuses.
Cuba's UN Ambassador Ernesto Soberón criticized the event for failing to address U.S. sanctions and their impact.
The panelists “are not coming to say that Cuba has 7,000 containers sitting in international ports that no shipping company wants to transport to Cuba because they are afraid of being sanctioned,” he said.
Soberón accused Marco Rubio of reaching out to heads of state “in a desperate attempt to pressure them into changing their countries’ positions and votes on the resolution.”
Rubio, said Soberón, had “an unhealthy obsession with Cuba.”
On Monday, Soberón gathered with Cuban diplomats and allies from around the world outside the room where the event was being held.
"Cuba is here, not in there," Soberón said. “This charade is an attempt to deviate attention from a simple fact: The U.S. is acting as an international delinquent, enforcing collective punishment on the people of Cuba.”
At the event, Waltz hosted opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Cuba Archive director María Werlau and Emilio Morales, who presents himself as an expert on the finances of Cuba's military-run business conglomerate GAESA.
Waltz seized on that subject, repeating a claim by Miami Herald journalist Nora Gámez Torres that GAESA is hoarding $18 billion in assets while the Cuban people suffer. Waltz lamented Gámez’s inability to attend the event, and commended her “courageous investigative reporting” (it was familiar praise for a journalist whose articles are frequently cited by Marco Rubio and other hardliners to justify U.S. sanctions).
As it turns out, the Herald’s purported bombshell appears to rest on an egregious accounting error: treating figures denominated in Cuban pesos as if they were U.S. dollars.
Read our breakdown of the Miami Herald’s shaky math HERE.
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At a press conference in Havana on Wednesday, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also accused the Trump administration of trying to pressure other countries to vote against Cuba. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to debate the annual resolution condemning the U.S. blockade on October 27–28, with a vote expected on the second day.
Rodríguez said U.S. officials had threatened punitive tariffs, visa denials for government officials and their families, and the cancellation of U.S. assistance for countries that refused to vote with the United States.
Rodríguez also accused the Trump administration of threatening diplomats with interfering in their countries’ elections and destabilizing their governments if their countries voted with Cuba.
He did not present evidence to support those allegations, but the Trump administration’s efforts to influence countries’ positions on Cuba at the UN are well documented.
In July, a leaked State Department cable obtained by The Nation revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had instructed U.S. diplomats to lobby their host countries to vote against holding a UN debate on the humanitarian consequences of U.S. sanctions on Cuba. Rubio warned countries that had historically opposed the blockade that the Trump administration would be “listening closely to their statements.”
Now, Rodríguez says Rubio and Waltz are personally leading the campaign to pressure member states to vote against the resolution, abstain or leave the room altogether. Rubio publicly pressed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele last week to align with U.S. priorities at the UN. For his part, Waltz acknowledged lobbying European governments, repeating allegations that the Cuban government was sending mercenaries to fight in Ukraine.
Playing the Ukraine Card
Using Ukraine to undermine support for Cuba in Europe is not a new tactic for Marco Rubio’s State Department.
Ahead of last year’s UN vote condemning the U.S. blockade on Cuba, Reuters reported that U.S. diplomats had been instructed to lobby foreign governments by claiming Cuba had sent 5,000 troops to fight for Russia.
On Wednesday, Cuba's Foreign Ministry rejected—again—U.S. allegations that its government is involved in recruiting Cuban nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
The campaign to implicate Cuba in the war in Ukraine follows a familiar pattern: Florida’s hard-line politicians, U.S. government-funded exile groups and Miami media outlets generate and amplify allegations that Washington then uses to intensify political and diplomatic pressure on Havana.
In September 2025, a month before that year's UN vote, three Cuban-American Republican members of Congress—Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez—hosted a briefing with Ukrainian intelligence officials.
The event was moderated by Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, a Miami hardliner who has advocated for U.S. military intervention in Cuba and whose organization, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, has received millions of dollars in U.S. government funding. Our investigation, Billboards and Backchannels, documented his collaboration with wealthy property claimants to lobby the Trump administration for tougher sanctions against Cuba.
During the event, Díaz-Balart criticized European governments for maintaining financial ties with Cuba, while Ukrainian officials called for additional sanctions against Havana.
That same month, at a conference hosted by the Cuban Democratic Directorate, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) President Damon Wilson credited NED-funded organizations with exposing alleged Cuban government involvement in Russian recruitment. The NED operates as an arm of the U.S. government, receiving its entire budget from Congress and carrying out many of the CIA’s former activities.
TheMiami Herald followed up with a report on allegations of Cuban government complicity, citing Ukrainian intelligence officials who identified more than 1,000 Cuban nationals recruited by Russia.
Despite the relentless campaign to implicate Cuba, no evidence has surfaced proving the Cuban government was involved in sending mercenaries to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Cuba says it has been cracking down on mercenary recruitment since 2023.
“Unlike the United States, Cuba has a clean record in combating the grave scourge of mercenary activity, toward which the country maintains a zero-tolerance policy,” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Cuban authorities say they have investigated 17 cases involving 49 defendants. Of those, 43 were brought before courts in 12 proceedings, with prosecutors seeking prison sentences ranging from five to 16 years.
Ten trials have been completed, with two still pending. Cases against six defendants were dismissed for insufficient evidence.
"Cuba is not part of this conflict, nor does it participate with military personnel there, or in any other country," the ministry said.
Cuban authorities maintain that none of the Cuban citizens who joined the Ukraine war received encouragement, support or authorization from government institutions, and that most were recruited abroad.
Mike Waltz Asks All the Questions
The alternate universe constructed by Cuban-American hardliners was on full display at the UN on Monday, when Mike Waltz concluded his invitation-only Cuba event by posing a series of rhetorical questions intended to reinforce one of Marco Rubio’s favorite talking points: the U.S. blockade on Cuba doesn’t exist.
Waltz posed the questions as if the answers were obvious. Since reporters weren’t given a chance to challenge him, we decided to help him out with some fact-checking.
Waltz:“If Cuba is cut off from the world, how did aid from Belize, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Uruguay, and the UN itself reach the island?”
The U.S. economic blockade is not absolute. Humanitarian aid can be sent to Cuba, but U.S. sanctions often block or delay aid shipments.
According to Francisco Pichón, the UN resident coordinator in Cuba, U.S. sanctions, fuel shortages and “over-compliance” by banks have delayed the delivery of medicines, food and other critical supplies. See our interview with Pichón HERE.
Thousands of shipping containers carrying food, medicine and other essential goods were recently stranded in Caribbean ports after two major European shipping companies stopped delivering cargo to Cuba amid fears of U.S. sanctions, according to an article written by Ed Augustinin The New York Times.
Among the stranded shipments were medical equipment and humanitarian supplies purchased by UN agencies.
Waltz:“If Cuba is cut off from the world, how did a Russian tanker deliver fuel?”
In the last 10 months, only one oil tanker has made it to Cuba.
Russian ship Anatoly Kolodkin reached the island March 31 with more than 700,000 barrels of oil, providing Cuba with enough fuel to power its electrical plants for a couple weeks in April.
Since then, the U.S.-imposed oil blockade has resulted in blackouts lasting more than 30 hours, forced surgeons to operate under cell phone lights, brought public transportation to a halt and disrupted the distribution of food, medicine and drinking water.
Waltz:“If Cuba is cut off from the world, how did American companies export more than half a billion dollars in agricultural products alone to Cuba just last year?”
Since 2000, the U.S. has allowed for agricultural exports to Cuba. But importing food from U.S. companies comes with strings attached. Cuban buyers must pay in advance in cash or arrange financing through banks in third countries. U.S. banks cannot provide ordinary credit for these purchases, which effectively prevents many U.S. farmers from selling to Cuba.
Watch our video about how cheap U.S. chicken sold in Cuba obscures the cost of U.S. sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's oil blockade is making it increasingly harder for Cuba to produce its own food. A March report from the Pan American Health Organization found that fuel shortages had left roughly 70 percent of the island's tractors idle, reducing the amount of Cuban farmland prepared for planting by more than 80 percent.
In February, the UN Human Rights Office warned that U.S. measures restricting oil shipments were threatening Cuba's food, water and healthcare systems. UN High Commissioner Volker Türk called for unilateral sectoral sanctions to be lifted because they are putting lives at risk.
Waltz:“How did another quarter billion dollars in American fuel reach the island just this year?”
The Trump administration has allowed certain U.S. companies to sell fuel to private Cuban businesses while blocking oil from getting to the Cuban government, which operates power plants and the electrical grid and provides essential public services.
Cuba's Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told Reuters this month that fuel entering from the U.S. through the private market was meeting less than 3 percent of the country's needs.
Meanwhile, U.S. authorities recently seized 620,000 gallons of biodiesel allegedly destined for Cuba, while the Coast Guard has stopped and boarded foreign vessels in international waters on suspicion of transporting fuel to the island.
Waltz:“Why isn't [aid] reaching the Cuban people? Why is so much of it sold on the black market to once again fuel the regime?”
This accusation is frequently made by U.S. officials, but there is no credible evidence that the Cuban government is stealing humanitarian aid and Waltz offered none.
The Trump administration has used the allegation to justify channeling its promised $100 million in humanitarian assistance through Catholic charities instead of the Cuban government.
Without access to the government’s extensive distribution infrastructure, delivering aid across the island poses enormous logistical challenges, made even more difficult by fuel shortages caused by U.S. sanctions and the oil blockade.
Needless to say, the U.S. aid has been slow to arrive.
When Belly of the Beast visited the town of Bejucal during the first distribution of U.S. humanitarian aid, residents welcomed the assistance but questioned the contradiction between providing food and imposing an oil blockade that has deepened shortages.
“They want to blockade and attack Cuba, and then they are going to help?” asked Mercedes Gutiérrez, a retired teacher.
With fuel in short supply, volunteers transported packages using dollies and a motorized tricycle, while one resident donated five liters of fuel to help distribute them.
Read our full story about the hypocrisy of U.S. humanitarian aid to Cuba HERE.
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