For more than three decades, the United Nations General Assembly has held a debate and vote to condemn the U.S. government’s decades-long unilateral economic and trade embargo. While the U.S. routinely lobbies other countries to vote in its favor at the UN, efforts over the last two years have raised many questions, particularly regarding Cuba. The latest measures go beyond typical verbal lobbying and are instead approaching coercion, with the U.S. wielding its economic and military power to strike deals.
On Monday, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz held an hour-long meeting, “Cuba Libre: The Oppression Havana Hides,” featuring at least two questionable “political prisoners” who were formerly incarcerated in Cuba. The meeting, attended by dozens of people, only allowed for U.S. officials and others with prepared statements (or who were part of seemingly orchestrated question-and-answer sessions) to speak.
Jose Daniel Ferrer, who was once caught on video bashing his own head into a table and later accusing Cuban police of beating him, was one of those speakers. Ferrer has previously been arrested for violent behavior dating back to 1993, according to the Cuban government. In 2019, he was arrested for kidnapping after a Cuban citizen accused him and three others of abducting and beating him over the course of one night. In 2025, after the Vatican negotiated his release from prison, Ferrer violated his parole after he ignored mandatory court hearings, as required by the terms of his release. He was later freed and left Cuba.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara also spoke. Like Ferrer, his group also took money from the U.S. to foment uprisings in Cuba. Despite this, Alcantara has drawn much controversy since leaving Cuba last year. In Miami, Cubans have accused him of being an operative of the Cuban government based on his being allowed to pursue his art career while in prison, his healthy physical appearance after his release, the Cuban government shipping his artworks to Miami, and because he was seen sipping whisky with prison guards before leaving Cuba.
Later, Maria Werlau, who has led a campaign against Cuban doctors working abroad, also spoke. The narrative she presented about Cuba’s Medical Missions has been echoed by Cuban American hardliners and by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She argued that Cuban doctors are essentially slaves of the Cuban government and labeled their work as human trafficking, an assertion Rubio was ridiculed for during his 2025 trip to Latin America and the Caribbean.
In response to the chaos created by the U.S. campaign, the Cuban delegation to the UN, led by Cuban ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, gathered for a small protest outside the room where the meeting took place, calling Waltz a liar and accusing him of terrorism. Talking to the press at a gathering after the meeting, Guzmán said, “The US is acting as an international delinquent, enforcing collective punishment on the people of Cuba. They are inflicting immense suffering upon the whole population of a peaceful nation.”
It should be noted that the U.S. has tried similar lobbying techniques in the past, and most were unsuccessful. Last year, the United States convened a meeting of Caribbean and Latin American nations to vote against condemning the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Before that, the U.S. tried to swing votes in its favor with countries throughout Eastern Europe, securing only a vote against the measure from Ukraine. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world voted to condemn the U.S.’s actions for more than three decades. The U.S. ignores them.
What this recent event and upcoming U.S. attempts to swing votes will accomplish leading up to the October 28 vote remains to be seen, but its history of success is negligible. Officials using the same decades-old lies and propaganda are unlikely to bode well. What the campaign tells us is that the U.S. is still widely seen as the aggressor against Cuba, and its assertion that Cuba is a threat is being widely dismissed. These latest efforts also signify desperation for a policy that is not accepted in the U.S., Cuba, or anywhere else around the world.
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