Officials from Washington and Havana traded insults and accusations on the UN General Assembly (UNGA) floor on Tuesday, ahead of today’s annual vote on a resolution condemning longstanding U.S. sanctions against the island.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz had just started to give a speech urging member nations not to support the resolution, citing the alleged corruption and human rights violations committed by the Cuban communist leadership at the expense of the Cuban people, when the Cuban delegation began slamming its hands on its table, heckling and demanding a point of order.
At the beginning of the interruptions, Waltz told the Cubans: “This is America, my friends, this is the United Nations. This isn’t your communist dictatorship, you cannot silence me”.
The official video shows that Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, eventually followed by other members of the Cuban delegation, walked towards the UNGA podium and then began shouting directly at Waltz, calling him a “liar.”
“I ask you to back away from this podium,” Waltz responded.
“Back up, ambassador, back away. This isn’t Havana. You’re not going to intimidate me,” the U.S. diplomat continued. “I am speaking on behalf of the Cuban people,” Waltz also claimed.
The UN official presiding over the meeting, after repeatedly asking the Cuban delegation to return to its seats, eventually allowed the Cuban delegation a point of order.
Rodríguez Parrilla then asked the official to call Waltz to order, accusing him of “lying” and “offending the dignity of the people and government of Cuba.” He also accused Waltz of being “beneath the dignity of this forum.”
Addressing the situation afterwards, Rodríguez Parrilla wrote that the U.S. “lies in a crude and permanent manner” and said that Waltz, “with his arrogance and hubris, forgets that he is at the United Nations, not at the US National Security Council, nor in a Green Berets unit, nor in a Signal group, where has repeatedly shown his incompetence and incapacity.”
During Rodríguez Parrilla’s address to the UN today, he also said that Waltz saying “this is America” in response to his interruptions “reflects a vision of the world which views the planet and treats it as if it were part of U.S. territory.”
The diplomatic repercussions of the spat have been considerable. Waltz confirmed to FOX News late on Tuesday that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had approved the expulsion of a Cuban diplomat who, according to Waltz, “shoved and tried to assault one of our American diplomats.”
“He’s gone, he is going to be on a plane to Havana within the next 24 hours. You lay a hand on an American here in the United States, President Trump, Secretary Rubio and myself, we are not going to stand for it,” Waltz continued.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has nevertheless praised the delegation’s “firm stance against the disrespect, arrogance and imperialist arrogance” supposedly shown by the U.S.
Why the controversy?
During his speech, Waltz made a series of incendiary accusations of the Cuban communist leadership, of which Rodríguez Parrilla is an integral part.
The interruptions began after Waltz mentioned former leader Fidel Castro sending “thousands of gay people, Christians, Afro-Cubans and others to concentration camps” where the “regime … profited from their forced labor” after stripping them of their property.
Between 1965 and 1968 the Cuban government operated agricultural forced labor concentration camps, where conscientious objectors, LBGT people, Christians and political enemies of the Castro regime performed forced labor.
Castro accepted responsibility in 2010 for the persecution of gays and lesbians by the revolution, and gay marriage was legalized in the country in 2022.
Waltz also accused the Cuban leadership of silencing dissent in Cuba proper, hoarding wealth confiscated from ordinary Cubans in entities like GAESA, a Cuban state-owned business conglomerate operated by the Cuban military, and profiting off humanitarian aid sent to Cuba instead of providing the aid to the Cuban people.
Prominent human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have long identified Cuba, which is governed as a one-party state by the Cuban Communist Party, as a state which represses freedom of expression.
There have also been some reports of humanitarian aid intended for Cubans in need ending up resold in dollar-only stores associated with regime officials.
Investigative reports into GAESA’s secretive finances have also revealed that GAESA has billions in dollar holdings, pays no taxes on its profits and controls between 40 and 70% of the Cuban economy. Most Cubans earn a monthly wage of less than $20.
Nevertheless, the purpose of Waltz’s speech was, fundamentally, to encourage countries to vote against condemning the U.S. punitive financial embargo against Cuba, which is widely accepted as a critical factor in the country’s impoverishment.
The UN itself said in 2018 that the embargo, enacted in the early 1960s as tensions between Washington and the Cuban revolutionary government cemented themselves, had cost the Cuban economy a total of $130 billion,
The Cuban government estimated earlier this year that the embargo, which it calls a blockade, had cost the country a record $8.08 billion in losses between March 2025 and February 2026.
Sanctions have been strengthened this year, as the U.S. has imposed a near-total oil blockade on the island and targeted several key sectors of the Cuban economy with punitive measures, which have contributed to a severe humanitarian and economic crisis in the Caribbean nation.
In May, UN officials said that over 100,000 Cubans were waiting for surgeries delayed by power outages and supply shortages.
UN member states today voted in favor of the resolution condemning the U.S. embargo against Cuba for the 34th time since 1992. On all 33 previous occasions, the UNGA has also called for an end to the embargo.
Featured Image: Current U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz (C) with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (R).
Image Credit: The White House via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
