Cuba’s UN Ambassador Calls Out Rubio
October 17, 2026
Less than two weeks before the UN General Assembly votes on an annual resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic blockade on Cuba, the Trump administration is organizing an event targeting the Cuban government at UN headquarters, according to Cuba’s UN Ambassador Ernesto Soberón.
The event, which will be held Monday, is titled “Cuba Libre: The Oppression Havana Hides.”
Soberón said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is pressuring foreign leaders to vote against Cuba.
The resolution to end the blockade has passed 33 years in a row, with the U.S. and Israel its only consistent opponents. In 2024, they were the only two countries to vote against it.
“Cuba will not be intimidated, blackmailed, or silenced,” said Soberón.
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“We are here before all of you today to denounce the holding, next Monday at United Nations headquarters, of an event convened by the Permanent Mission of the United States under the provocative title ‘Cuba Libre: The Oppression Havana Hides,’” said Ernesto Soberón, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations.
“Here I have a copy of the invitation. Of course, they did not send it to us, but we have very good friends all around the world,” Soberón added.
“It states that the panelists’ names are not being shared prior to the event. Why? Because we know these people are not coming to say that, on January 29, 2026, the president of the United States signed an executive order establishing sanctions against any foreign company or foreign country that sells oil to Cuba,” he continued.
“They are not coming to say that Cuba has 7,000 containers sitting in international ports that no shipping company wants to transport to Cuba because they are afraid of being sanctioned,” Soberón explained.
“The meeting will be open to invited members of the press. There will be no opportunity to intervene. So people are simply expected to go there and listen to what they have to say,” he stated.
“While the United States organizes an event to attack Cuba at UN headquarters, it deliberately avoids addressing the only item on the UN agenda specifically devoted to Cuba: the necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial embargo that the United States itself imposed on our country,” the Cuban diplomat emphasized.
“The U.S. secretary of state himself, who in my humble opinion has an unhealthy obsession with Cuba, has been reaching out directly to heads of state and government in a desperate attempt to pressure them into changing their countries’ positions and votes on the resolution,” Soberón declared.
“I have to be very clear: Cuba will not be intimidated, blackmailed, or silenced,” he concluded.
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