UN Cuba Embargo Vote: Support Falls to 130, a 20-Year Low

Economic Warfare & Trade Policy › Sanctions

Featured image: The United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York (file photo). Photo: Basil D Soufi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The annual UN Cuba embargo vote passed again on Wednesday, Oct. 28, but with its weakest support in two decades. The UN General Assembly adopted Cuba’s resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic, commercial and financial embargo by 130 votes to 17, with 25 abstentions, the 34th year in a row it has approved the measure, UN News reported.

A year ago the same resolution passed 165 to 7 with 12 abstentions. In 2024 it passed 187 to 2, with only the United States and Israel voting no, according to the UN’s official meeting coverage.

By the numbers: the Cuba embargo vote over 34 years

The drop is steep and recent. By Boston Report calculations from UN figures, yes votes fell by 35 from 2025, a 21% decline, and by 57 from 2024, a 30% decline. No votes more than doubled, from 7 to 17, and abstentions roughly doubled, from 12 to 25.

The 130 yes votes equal 67% of the UN’s 193 members, down from 85% in 2025. Another 21 members did not vote at all this year, compared with nine last year. Support is still more than double the 59 countries that backed the first resolution in 1992, when three voted no and 71 abstained. It peaked at 191 in 2015 and 2017, around the thaw under President Barack Obama; in 2016 the United States abstained for the first time.

What the U.S. said: ‘There is no blockade’

U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz urged countries to vote no. “There is no blockade,” he said, citing more than $876 million in U.S. exports to Cuba in the first eight months of 2026, including fuel, and shipments from Canada, Spain, Mexico, China, Russia, the European Union and UN agencies. He said financial records show $18 billion in military-controlled assets and accused the government of holding 800 political prisoners. He told delegates a no vote was “the only thing standing between” the government and “another propaganda victory,” and alleged that a Cuban diplomat had assaulted an American diplomat during the debate and would be expelled.

What Cuba said: ‘The blockade is a threat’

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla displayed an on-screen counter that he said showed $22.9 million in economic damage since the debate opened on Tuesday. He blamed the embargo for strangling Cuba’s health system, saying infant mortality had doubled and tens of thousands of surgeries had been delayed or canceled; those figures come from the Cuban government. “Cuba is not a threat; the blockade is a threat,” he said.

The resolution cites the UN Charter’s principles of sovereign equality and non-interference and names the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, whose reach affects companies in other countries that trade with Cuba.

Why support is slipping

The vote came as Cuba suffers a severe energy crisis made worse by a U.S. fuel embargo imposed after Venezuela’s president was taken to New York, UN News reported. Last year’s no votes already included Argentina, Hungary, North Macedonia, Paraguay and Ukraine alongside the U.S. and Israel. The Associated Press also covered the vote.

Washington has paired pressure at the UN with direct appeals to Cubans, including a Southern Command post amplifying a CIA appeal as the Guiteras power plant failed again. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s role is covered in our profile of Rubio’s time at State. General Assembly resolutions are not binding, so the embargo stays in place unless Congress acts.

Sources

• UN News: Backing for UN call to end Cuba embargo falls to 20-year low
• UN Meetings Coverage: General Assembly Adopts Resolution to Lift United States Embargo of Cuba
• AP: UN condemns US economic embargo of Cuba