UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday called for the 34th time for an end to the U.S. economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba, but support for the resolution fell to its weakest level in two decades after a U.S. lobbying campaign persuaded several countries to oppose it or abstain for the first time in years, according to Reuters.
The resolution passed by 130 votes to 17, with 25 abstentions, UN News reported. A year earlier the same text was adopted by 165 votes to seven, with 12 abstentions. Germany and Italy were among the Western countries that abstained for the first time in many years, according to Reuters, and the Associated Press reported that Latvia was also among the first-time abstainers. The vote is not legally binding, and only the U.S. Congress can lift the embargo, which has been in place for more than 60 years.
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz welcomed the shift. "I’m satisfied that so many countries now, including major economies like Korea, like Germany, and others have shifted their position," he told reporters after the vote, according to Reuters. "Diplomacy takes time, but now that we’ve had a tripling of countries that have shifted, we expect that to only continue to grow." In the debate, Waltz rejected the premise of the resolution outright. "There is no blockade," he said, pointing to more than $876 million in U.S. exports to the island in the first eight months of 2026, according to UN News.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the United States had been isolated again. "The US government is once again isolated in its attempt to continue strangling the Cuban people," he wrote on X after the vote, according to Reuters. During the debate he displayed a running counter showing what he said the embargo had cost Cuba since the session opened on Tuesday — more than $22.9 million — and blamed it for straining Cuba’s health system, claims the United States disputes, UN News reported. The vote came as Cuba struggles with a severe energy crisis made worse by a U.S. fuel embargo.
The debate also produced a diplomatic expulsion. The Trump administration ejected Richard Tur de la Concepción, the first secretary of Cuba’s U.N. mission, after the United States accused him of shoving and trying to assault a U.S. diplomat during a shouting match between Waltz and Rodríguez on the General Assembly floor on Tuesday, according to CNN. Waltz said Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed the paperwork to eject him. "You lay a hand on an American here in the United States, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, and myself, we’re not going to stand for it," Waltz said on Fox News. A State Department spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that the diplomat had left the country. Cuba denied the U.S. account of the confrontation and condemned Waltz’s claims as false.
The resolution itself, presented by Cuba, cites the U.N. Charter principles of sovereign equality and non-interference, and names the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, whose reach extends to companies and individuals in other countries, UN News reported. Support for the resolution peaked at 191 votes in 2015 and 2017, during the thaw under President Barack Obama. This year’s drop does not change U.S. law, but it marks the first clear crack in three decades of near-unanimous votes. The UN News report is available from UN News.
