Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, stated today at the United Nations that the blockade is a policy of collective punishment, which he characterizes as an act of genocide.
Due to its importance, we are transmitting in full the speech by Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, at the presentation of Draft Resolution A/80/L.X, entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” New York, October 29, 2025
Madam President:
I express my deepest condolences and solidarity to the governments and people of Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, who have suffered loss of life due to Hurricane Melissa. I also extend my condolences to Panama, which has suffered some losses due to heavy rains, and our best wishes to the Bahamas and Bermuda.
I speak on behalf of a people who are currently facing a monstrous hurricane with scarce resources, relying almost entirely on willpower, unity, and solidarity. As the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Raúl Castro Ruz, said last night, and I quote, “…we will also emerge victorious from this new challenge.”
We have heard the infamous, threatening, arrogant, mendacious, and cynical speech of the new Permanent Representative of the United States, who is not in the room. This was to be expected, knowing where this individual comes from and his shady ties to the Secretary of State, the military contractor mafias, and the political clique in Miami.
Yesterday, from this podium, he said he would refer to the facts, but he did precisely the opposite. I will only recall what he seems to ignore despite his responsibilities, or worse, what he perhaps distorts with a mendacious intent: The laws and regulations of his country’s economic aggression against Cuba are not ambiguous regarding their actions and ambitions. They openly declare in law the goal of restricting Cuba’s trade, investment, and credit relations with all countries. They also establish, in law, the obligation of U.S. diplomats to comply with this mandate in their contacts with officials of the governments you represent.
I would recommend that my colleagues from 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 Assembly can determine for itself, as it has done for 33 years, whether or not we are facing an economic blockade.
In recent weeks, the deployment of pressure, intimidation, and toxicity by the State Department, on a global scale, has been brutal and unprecedented, aimed at forcing sovereign states to change their vote on the resolution we will adopt today. They have employed 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 is viciously deprived, in every corner of the world, of the use of banking systems to make and receive 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 healthcare.
The strategic purpose of the blockade is to provoke a social explosion that will lead to the overthrow of the constitutional order that Cubans have freely chosen in several referendums.
The Secretary of State is the malevolent, corrupt, and fraudulent reincarnation of Mallory, and the Permanent Representative has become his mouthpiece. As is well 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 sorrow, there has been a deterioration in some health indicators which, while still noteworthy for a developing country and comparable to those of industrialized nations, are now lower than the levels our country was able to achieve progressively.
One example is infant mortality, which, after consecutive years with rates below 5 per 1,000 live births, reached 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 separate this outcome from the impact that the economic blockade has on the sustainability of the healthcare system, just as one cannot separate life expectancy rates, maternal mortality, or the availability of highly subsidized medicines for the population from it.
Between March 1, 2024, and February 28 of this year alone, the blockade caused Cuba some $7.5561 billion in material damages. This impact is similar to the nominal Gross Domestic Product of at least 30 countries, including those represented here, according to World Bank data.
But the damage caused by the blockade is not only expressed in numbers and material losses, 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, a life-threatening condition, requires an automatic defibrillator implant, which Cuba cannot access. Dailiannis and so many other Cuban patients with similar conditions are waiting for this type of implant.
Six-year-old Abdiel needs hip surgery requiring a bone graft. This tissue is produced at the Tissue Bank of the Frank País Hospital, but the essential freeze-drying process is paralyzed due to a lack of a sensor. It has not been possible to purchase it, even though the money is available, because the companies that supply it, due to the embargo against Cuba, refuse to sell it according to standard trade practices.
These are not collateral damage. These are not isolated cases. These are everyday experiences. These are innocent human beings who are suffering.
The creativity of our institutions and the professionals who work in them is extraordinary and highly commendable, but the anguish it generates for Cuban families, and the strain it places on the public health system, cannot be calculated when these medicines or medical supplies are unavailable when needed.
Since 2019, a key part of the tightening of the blockade has been the increased persecution of fuel supply operations, including those targeting shipping companies, insurance companies, banks, and governments. This has led to a reduction in suppliers for Cuba and an exponential increase in prices.
Power outages are now one of the most visible and painful impacts of the economic blockade in Cuba, with a daily, sometimes desperate, effect on families. It also impacts other sectors, such as water supply, production processes, services, and the economy as a whole, all of which weigh heavily on the population.
A few months ago, a corporation and a friendly government declared it impossible to supply a spare part or even basic technical assistance to repair a Cuban thermoelectric plant, citing the threat of US sanctions.
Another vital sector of the economy that has been particularly harmed is tourism. Today, citizens of more than 40 countries are being intimidated and threatened with reprisals from the US government and the denial of access to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) if they decide to visit Cuba, exercising their fundamental rights.
The US government not only deprives its own citizens of the right to travel to Cuba, but also seeks to and succeeds in depriving, through coercion, citizens of other countries not under its jurisdiction, especially European citizens.
One of the most impactful measures is the unjustifiable inclusion of Cuba on the unilateral and arbitrary list published by the US government of states that supposedly sponsor terrorism.
Cuba is a country that is a victim of terrorism. We have demonstrated this before in this Assembly. For years, and even today, terrorist acts against the country are organized and financed from U.S. territory. Known perpetrators of horrendous acts of aggression against the Cuban people, resulting in thousands of deaths, injuries, and substantial material damage, live here peacefully and with absolute impunity. In 2023, we provided the U.S. government with the names and information of 62 terrorists and 20 terrorist organizations operating against Cuba from this country, and they have done nothing to this day.
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, using Cuban-born operatives based in this and other countries.
Their mission, their mandate, is to depress the population’s income level through speculative manipulation of the currency exchange rate, with a direct effect on price increases, the spread of intimidating and alarmist messages on social media, and the disruption of the natural market behavior. The effect is severe damage to the income of every Cuban and additional obstacles to macroeconomic stabilization programs.
This is achieved by laundering money from the U.S. federal budget using funds allocated by the U.S. Congress and channeled through the State Department, non-governmental organizations, and contractors.
Our government has irrefutable evidence of these operations, including data, names, contacts, communications, and the direct involvement of the U.S. government and its diplomats. This is a criminal activity under international law, Cuban law, and even U.S. law.
The United States has tried to sell the idea that the embargo is a justification used by the Cuban government to hide its inefficiencies or the flaws in its development model.
This political campaign relies on a communications and digital operation that, through toxic disinformation, euphemisms, selective silences, and the coordinated saturation of messages, seeks to create the perception that the blockade does not exist or does not affect the population.
The United States government not only attempts to deny or minimize the effects of the blockade, but also penalizes those who document its impact, resorting to smear campaigns, cyber troops paid with “regime change” funds, and algorithmic censorship of Cuban content by its own technology platforms.
Anyone who denies that Cuba’s economic problems would be better and faster solved without the blockade is lying, and will continue to lie.
In fact, the very promoters of the blockade and maximum pressure policy boast of its destructive effect and its capacity to cripple the standard of living of an entire nation. Review the statements of the U.S. Secretary of State and the politicians who have built their careers and fortunes on aggression against Cuba.
If the U.S. government has even the slightest concern for “helping the Cuban people,” it should suspend or make humanitarian exceptions to the blockade due to the damage that Hurricane Melissa is causing and will cause.
Cuba is a peaceful country. No one in their right mind and with a modicum of honesty can claim 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 aggressively, extraordinarily, and unjustifiably in the Caribbean Sea while we deliberate here? Which one is threatening the peace, security, and stability of the region, and especially the peace and right to self-determination of the Venezuelan people? Which country has adopted the criminal practice of committing murders on the high seas or within the territorial waters of other countries at the hands of its armed forces, as is happening today in the Caribbean and the Pacific? Which country has filled our region with military bases? Who openly orchestrates aggressive plans for subversion and regime change against progressive governments? Which government is the direct accomplice, supplier of weapons, and financier of the genocide in Gaza?
If the U.S. government truly wishes to contribute to peace in “Our America,” it should withdraw the military threat and accept a civilized dialogue, without preconditions or impositions, with Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and 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 makes no distinction between social sectors or economic actors.
I am deeply grateful to those who, in this debate and in the high-level segment of the 80th session of the General Assembly, raised their voices to call for an end to the blockade and the removal of our country from the infamous list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
I am also grateful to the regional and coordinating groups that, throughout the year, have issued strong statements on this matter; to the numerous organizations and movements of solidarity with Cuba around the world; and to Americans who advocate for a relationship based on respect and sovereign equality between our two countries.
I acknowledge the expressions of Cubans in the United States and throughout the world who, through their pronouncements and their acts of solidarity and patriotism, oppose and fight against the blockade.
Cuba will not surrender.
We will persist in denouncing the infamy and the abuse. We will resolutely exercise our right to decide our destiny. We will continue our efforts to overcome our current difficulties and ensure the country’s economic sustainability, even with the continuation or even the further strengthening of the blockade.
With José Martí, our people reaffirm today that “…before we cease in our efforts to make the Homeland prosperous and free, the South Sea will first unite with the North Sea, and a serpent will hatch from an eagle’s egg.”
And with Antonio Maceo: “Whoever tries to seize Cuba will gather the dust of its soil soaked in blood, if they do not perish in the struggle.”
And with Fidel Castro Ruz, we exclaim once again: Patria o Muerte! Venceremos! Homeland or Death! We Will Win!
Madam President:
On behalf of the noble and compassionate Cuban people, who for decades have been writing an admirable story of patriotism, justice, resistance, creativity, and sacrifice, I respectfully request that the Member States vote in favor of draft resolution A/80/L.6, entitled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial, and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America Against Cuba.”
Distinguished Ambassadors, Delegates, this will be an act of justice for a peaceful people who today face, as with the blockade, another monstrous hurricane.
Thank you very much.
(Transcription from Cubaminrex)
IMAGE CREDIT: ACN | Photo: @BrunoRguezP
