Address by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, at the introduction of draft resolution A/80/L.X, entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”:
UN General Assembly, New York, October 29, 2025
Madam President,
I express deep condolences and solidarity to the governments and peoples of Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, who have suffered loss of life due to Hurricane Melissa. Also to Panama, which has suffered some losses due to heavy rains and also our best wishes to the Bahamas and Bermuda.
I speak on behalf of a people that right now faces, with scarce resources, practically only with will, unity and solidarity, a monstrous hurricane. As the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Raúl Castro Ruz, said last night, and I quote. «… in the face of this new challenge we will also be victorious.”
We have heard the infamous, threatening, arrogant, lying and cynical speech of the new Permanent Representative of the United States, who is not in the room. We expected so, knowing where the character comes from and his shady ties with the Secretary of State, the military contractor mafias and the political claque of Miami.
Yesterday, from this podium, he said that he was going to refer to facts, but he did just the opposite. I will only recall what he seems to ignore despite his responsibilities, or worse, what he perhaps distorts with a mendacious spirit: The laws and regulations of economic aggression of his country against Cuba are not ambiguous in terms of actions and ambitions. They openly declare into law the goal of restricting Cuba’s trade, investment and credit relations with all countries. They also establish, in the body of law, the obligation of U.S. diplomats to comply with that mandate in their contacts with officials of the governments that you represent.
I would recommend that my colleagues in the United States read Title I and Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and the content of the Torricelli Act.
The actions speak for themselves and I will refer to them clearly. This House will be able to determine for itself, as it has done for 33 years, whether or not we are facing an economic blockade.
In recent weeks, the State Department’s deployment of pressure, intimidation and toxicity, on a global scale, to force sovereign states to change their vote on the resolution we will adopt today has been brutal and unprecedented. They have used all their weapons and tricks, especially coercion.
But truth, law, reason and justice are always more powerful and forceful.
It cannot be hidden that, by virtue of the criminal policy of the United States government against Cuba, my country, in any corner of the world, is viciously deprived of the use of banking systems to make collections and payments.
It is deprived of access to sources of current financing; investment capital; remittances; technology for industry, food production, infrastructure, scientific development and services, including the most sensitive, such as health.
The strategic purpose of the blockade is to provoke a social explosion that will lead to the overthrow of the constitutional order that we Cubans have freely decided in several referendums.
The Secretary of State is the evil, corrupt and fraudulent reincarnation of Mallory, and the Permanent Representative has become his spokesman. As is known, the impact of this type of aggression is not only economic. It is applied by design, with cold premeditation regarding its social and humanitarian impact on millions of people.
In Cuba, for example, in recent years, and I say this with pain, there has been a deterioration in some health indicators that, although they are still outstanding for a developing country and comparable to those of industrialized countries, are today lower than the indices that our country was able to achieve progressively.
An example is infant mortality which, after consecutive years with rates below 5 per thousand births, stands at 8.5 in the first half of this year.
It would be necessary to lie, as the Permanent Representative of the United States has done, to divorce this result from the impact that the economic blockade has on the maintenance of the health system, just as the rates of life expectancy, maternal mortality or availability of highly subsidized medicines for the population cannot be separated from it.
Between March 1, 2024 and February 28 alone, the blockade caused Cuba some 7,556.1 million dollars in material damages. It is an impact similar to the nominal Gross Domestic Product of at least 30 countries, of those represented here according to World Bank data.
But the damage of the blockade is not only expressed in numbers and material damage, but also in the daily lives of our compatriots. No person, family or sector escapes its daily and devastating effects.
Dailiannis, a 29-year-old Cuban woman with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which can be life-threatening, requires the implantation of an automatic defibrillator to which Cuba does not have access. Dailiannis and many other Cuban patients, with similar pathology, are waiting for this type of implant.
The 6-year-old Abdiel needs a hip operation that requires a bone graft. This tissue is produced in the Tissue Bank of the “Frank País” Hospital, but the indispensable freeze-drying process is paralyzed by the lack of a sensor. It has not been possible to buy it, even if we have the money to pay for it, because the companies that supply it, in the face of the blockade of Cuba, refuse to sell it in accordance with the usual practices of trade.
It is not collateral damage. These are not isolated cases. They are everyday experiences. They are innocent human beings who suffer.
The creativity of our institutions and the professionals who work in them is extraordinary and very commendable, but the anguish generated by Cuban families cannot be calculated, nor the strain on the public health system of not being able to count on these medicines or medical supplies when they are required.
An essential part of the tightening of the blockade has been, since 2019, the increase in the persecution of fuel supply operations, including shipping companies, insurance companies, banks and governments, which has caused Cuba to reduce suppliers and exponentially increase prices.
The blackouts are today one of the most visible and painful impacts of the economic blockade in Cuba, with a daily effect on families, sometimes desperate. It has an impact on other sectors, such as water supply, production processes, services and the economy as a whole, all of which weigh on the population.
A few months ago, a corporation and a friendly government declared it impossible to supply a spare part and mere technical assistance to repair a Cuban thermoelectric plant in the face of the threat of U.S. sanctions.
Another vital sector of the economy particularly affected is tourism. Today, citizens of more than 40 countries are intimidated and threatened with reprisals by the U.S. government and prohibition of access to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization or Visas (ESTA), if by virtue of the elementary exercise of their rights they decide to visit Cuba.
The United States government not only deprives its own citizens of the right to travel to Cuba, but also proposes and succeeds in depriving, by means of coercion, citizens of other countries that are not under its jurisdiction, especially European citizens.
One of the measures that has the greatest impact is the unjustifiable presence of Cuba in the unilateral and arbitrary list published by the U.S. government of states that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
Cuba is a victim of terrorism. We have demonstrated this before in this House. For years and even today, terrorist acts are organized and financed against the country from the territory of the United States. Recognized perpetrators of horrendous acts of aggression against the Cuban people live here peacefully and with absolute impunity, with a toll of thousands of deaths, mutilations and considerable material damage. In 2023, we delivered to the U.S. government the names and data of 62 terrorists and 20 terrorist organizations that act against Cuba from this country and have done nothing to date.
The economic war includes a comprehensive destabilization program, I am going to denounce these actions for the first time, it includes a comprehensive destabilization program organized, financed and executed directly by the U.S. government, with the employment of operators of Cuban origin based in this and other countries.
They have the mission, they have the task of depressing the level of income of the population by means of speculative manipulation of the exchange rate of the currency, with a direct effect on the growth of prices, the propagation in networks of intimidating and alarmist messages, and thus the alteration of the natural behavior of the market. The effect is severe damage to the income of every Cuban and additional obstacles to macroeconomic stabilization programs.
To this end, money is laundered from the United States federal budget using funds appropriated by the United States Congress and used by the State Department, non-governmental organizations and contractors who channel it.
Our government has irrefutable evidence about these operations, with data, names, contacts, communications and the direct involvement of the United States government and its diplomats. It is a criminal activity in the face of International Law, Cuban laws and even U.S. laws.
The United States has tried to sell the idea that the blockade is a justification for the Cuban government to hide its inefficiencies or the errors of its development model.
This political campaign is based on a communicational and digital operation that, through toxic disinformation, euphemisms, selective silences and the coordinated saturation of messages, seeks to install the perception that the blockade does not exist or does not affect the population.
The U.S. government not only tries to deny or minimize the blockade effect, but also penalizes those who document its effects, resorting to smear campaigns, cybertroops paid with “regime change” funds, and algorithmic censorship by the technological platforms it owns of Cuban national content.
Anyone who denies that, without a blockade, Cuba’s economic problems would have a better and faster solution would be lying and will lie.
In fact, the promoters of the policy of blockade and maximum pressure themselves boast of its destructive effect and the ability to hit the standard of living of an entire people. Review the statements of the Secretary of State of the United States and the politicians who have made a career and fortune with the aggression against Cuba.
If the U.S. government has any slightest concern about “helping the Cuban people,” suspend or make humanitarian exceptions to the blockade because of the damage that Hurricane Melissa will cause and is causing.
Cuba is a country of peace. No one in their right mind and with a minimum of honesty can allege that Cuba represents or intends to represent a threat to the national security of the United States, a great power, and to the well-being of the American people.
Which country has military forces deployed in an aggressive, extraordinary and unjustified manner in the Caribbean Sea while we are deliberating here? What is it that threatens the peace, security and stability of the region, and especially the peace and the right to self-determination of the brotherly Venezuelan people? Which is it that has adopted the criminal practice of committing murders on the high seas or within the jurisdictional waters of other countries at the hands of their armed forces, as is the case today in the Caribbean or the Pacific? Which one has our region full of military bases? Who openly articulates aggressive plans for subversion and regime change against progressive governments? Which government is the direct accomplice, supplier of arms and financing for the genocide in Gaza?
If the U.S. government wishes to contribute to peace in “Our America,” it withdraws the military threat and accepts a civilized dialogue, without preconditions or impositions, with Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba and with all those with whom it has differences and, collectively, with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
The blockade is a policy of collective punishment. It qualifies as an act of genocide. It flagrantly, massively and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans. It does not distinguish between social sectors or economic actors.
I am deeply grateful to those who, in this debate and at the high-level segment of the 80th session of the General Assembly, raised their voices to call for an end to the blockade and for our country to be removed from the infamous list of States sponsors of terrorism.
I would also like to thank the regional and concertation groupings which, throughout the year, have made strong statements on this subject; to the numerous organizations and movements of solidarity with Cuba around the world; to the Americans who advocate a relationship based on respect and sovereign equality between the two countries.
I recognize the expressions of Cubans in the United States and in all parts of the world who, with their pronouncements and their solidarity and patriotic actions, oppose and fight against the blockade.
Cuba will not surrender.
We will persist in denouncing infamy and abuse. We will exercise with determination the right to decide our destiny. We will continue our efforts to overcome our current difficulties and ensure the economic sustainability of the country, even with the continuation or even further strengthening of the embargo.
With José Martí, our people reaffirm today that “… rather than give up in the effort to make the Homeland prosperous and free, first the southern sea will join the northern sea and a snake will be born from an eagle’s egg.”
And of Antonio Maceo: “whoever tries to appropriate Cuba will collect the dust of its soil flooded in blood, if he does not perish in the struggle.”
And with Fidel Castro Ruz, we exclaim again: Homeland or Death, we will win.
Madam President,
On behalf of the noble and supportive Cuban people, who have been writing for decades an admirable feat of patriotism, justice, resistance, creation and sacrifice, I respectfully request Member States to vote in favour of draft resolution A/80/L.6, entitled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States of America on Cuba”.
It will be, distinguished Ambassadors, Distinguished Delegates, an act of justice in favor of a people of peace that today is facing, as if under the blockade, another monstrous hurricane.
Thank you very much.
https://www.juventudrebelde.cu/internacionales/2025-10-29/cuba-no-se-rendira-1
