The Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, accused this Wednesday the Government of the United States of intensifying to the maximum its policy of pressure against the island, with the objective of "seizing" the country and "controlling its economy", in line with the path set by previous US administrations.
"Everyone knows that the Government of the United States has extremely strengthened the aggression against Cuba with the public and manifest pretension of seizing the country, controlling its economy and exercising domination," said the head of Cuban diplomacy in his intervention prior to the vote at the UN on a draft resolution calling for the end of the blockade imposed by Washington on the Caribbean country.
In his speech, Rodríguez denounced that the current fuel blockade, in force since the beginning of the year, "threatens the lives of Cubans and attempts to destroy a sovereign State through economic suffocation".
"No people deserves the suffering that is being imposed on us today," he insisted, alluding to the serious difficulties that the island faces in the health field and in the supply of medicines "vital to treat diseases". He also emphasized that Cuba "does not pose a threat", while "the US blockade does".
The minister criticized Washington for maintaining a strategy of "imposing peace through force", applied not only against Cuba, but also "against other countries of the world", and warned that "every minute of deliberations in the UN National Assembly implies extraordinary damage for the people".
"Those damages caused by the blockade to Cubans are deliberately inflicted by political decision of Washington," he emphasized, before accusing the United States of trying to unleash a "humanitarian crisis", despite the fact that, as he underscored, the majority of US citizens are committed to normalizing bilateral ties and reject the use of military force.
On Tuesday there was also a new episode of diplomatic tension when the United States ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, maintained a tense exchange of words with Rodríguez, framed within the deterioration of relations and the tightening of the US blockade.
The clash originated after the Cuban minister interrupted what he later described on social media as an "offensive" speech by the American representative, who showed a black-and-white photograph of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro wearing a Rolex watch on his wrist.
In response to what happened, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has assured that "Cuba will not step back" and "even less in the face of Yankee pressures and orders". "Bravo Rodrígez and the rest of the companions of our delegation for such a firm attitude in the face of disrespect, arrogance, and imperial overbearingness".
"They could expect nothing less from this people", he added, to then recall that the UN headquarters "is a space of sovereign equality among States, where Cuba will always defend the rights conferred upon it by the Charter and the regulations of the United Nations", he concluded.