The US is reportedly readying diplomats to lobby against a UN resolution that would put pressure on Washington to lift its decades-long embargo on Cuba. The move comes as the Cuban government is actively supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with up to 5,000 Cubans fighting alongside Moscow’s forces, Reuters reported.
An internal State Department memo, dated October 2, directed the US embassy to the UN to encourage opposition to this non-binding resolution to drop the embargo, which has sailed through votes in General Assembly since 1992: Last year, for example, 187 countries supported the resolution. Only the US and its staunch ally Israel dissented.
Under Democratic administrations over the past decade or so, Washington has made overtures towards warming up to Havana, slightly relaxing some travel and trade restrictions.
But under Donald Trump, the Cold War-launched embargo has tightened, much to the relief of the diaspora of Cuban-Americans in Florida, whose interests are represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose roots are in the community.
Rubio is one of a handful of Republican then-senators who held a hard line against Russian aggression in the lead-up to the second Trump administration. But now that the geopolitical pendulum in the White House as swung against Moscow and Vladimir Putin, cracking down on Cuban interference in Ukraine has taken on new momentum.
Trump has Cuba back to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, has tightened financial restrictions against the Communist island nation, and has boosted other sanctions on Cuba, just as he has on Russia and its economic supporters.The State Department insists that the resolution inaccurately blame Cuba’s economic problems on Washington arguing rather that they stem from Cuba’s own corruption and flawed Communist central planning. Also, the US historically has taken to heart complaints about human rights violations there from the more than a million Cuban-born Americans.
The State Department communiqué also charged that Havana has failed to protect its citizens, who are allegedly being recruited to fight in Ukraine.