Shouting Match Freezes UN Hall as Cuba Confronts US Envoy Over Embargo

Shouting Match Freezes UN Hall as Cuba Confronts US Envoy Over Embargo

Waltz defends the embargo, Cuba bangs the tables

On Tuesday, October 27, the UN General Assembly debated the annual resolution condemning the United States' economic embargo on Cuba. Shortly after US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz took the podium to urge members to vote no in Wednesday's vote, members of the Cuban delegation, including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, began slamming their desks and shouting for points of order as Waltz detailed years of alleged corruption and ill-gotten wealth by the socialist government, according to the Associated Press.

Cuba's foreign minister storms the aisle shouting liar

As UN officials tried to calm the floor, Rodríguez walked down the aisle toward the head of the General Assembly and yelled at Waltz: "You are a liar!" The Assembly's president briefly suspended the session. Once granted the floor, Rodríguez invoked Article 71 of the General Assembly's rules of procedure, asking the chair to call the US ambassador to order. "Mr. Waltz is lying yet again," he said, calling the remarks "beneath the dignity of this forum and member states" and an offense to the dignity of the Cuban people and government.

Back up, this is not Havana, Waltz fires back

Waltz refused to yield the podium. "Back up, ambassador! Back away! This isn't Havana! You're not going to intimidate me. Do you understand who you're dealing with?" he shouted. "This is America, my friend. This is the United Nations. This isn't your communist dictatorship." He rejected Havana's description of the embargo as a blockade: "A blockade is a ring of military ships around an island. It does not exist." He added that every time Cuba interrupted him, he would keep explaining the regime's corruption "a little more slowly."

A resolution that has passed for 34 straight years

The clash came one day before the vote on a resolution targeting Washington's "maximum pressure policy" against Cuba. For the past 34 years the measure has passed with overwhelming support. Last year the tally was 165 in favor, 7 against, with 12 abstentions, with Argentina, Ukraine and Hungary voting no for the first time. Waltz and other US officials have used public events at the world body to lobby member states to vote against it this time, calling the resolution "an excuse to justify oppression."

Fuel blockade, blackouts and claims of vote threats

The embargo has stood for more than six decades, with the Assembly voting for repeal almost every year since 1992. Since January 2026, the Trump administration has tightened the screws by blocking oil supplies and threatening tariffs on countries that fuel Cuba, leaving the island with deeper shortages and prolonged blackouts. Cuba accuses Washington of threatening countries over how they vote. Tuesday's outburst followed a similar spat on October 19 outside a US-hosted panel with Cuban dissidents, featuring freed prisoner José Daniel Ferrer and artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. Wednesday's vote will show whether the lobbying shifted any votes.