Cuba Walks Out of UN Plenary Over Trump's Slanders

The Cuban delegation walked out of the UN General Assembly plenary today in response to slanders by U.S. President Donald Trump against the Caribbean nation during his speech.

Trump, who exceeded the 15-minute time allotted to speakers at the podium on the opening day of the High-Level Segment of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, devoted much of his remarks to highlighting the alleged achievements of his administration and talking about U.S. military power.

Minutes after UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for exercising power in the world through law and peace, not force, Trump stressed that he will not hesitate to use it if the United States perceives a threat.

Speaking about the Western Hemisphere and the changed map, Trump resorted to the repeated argument that "Cuba is an absolutely failed state," a possible pretext for military aggression against the country some 90 miles from the United States.

According to Trump, Cuba "is failing like never before and will end up falling," to which Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla responded in an immediate post on the social media platform X: "The U.S. government is incapable of accepting that Cuba is, and has the right to be, a fully independent and sovereign country."

He warned that "none of the falsehoods of the President of the United States at the UN and no slander can or will be able to deny that fact."

"Cuba is not a threat to the United States or to any country," Rodríguez Parrilla reiterated, stressing that "the economic blockade, including the energy siege, does threaten Cuba and the rest of the nations. It is an act of genocide and collective punishment. We are a country of peace and we deserve peace."

On the same internet platform, the Cuban foreign minister thanked the intervention of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — the first speaker in the General Debate — "for denouncing the collective punishment to which the people of Cuba are being subjected through an illegal economic and energy blockade by the U.S. government."

Lula said in turn from the podium that "in Cuba, the world observes with horror how collective punishment is imposed on 10 million people through an illegal embargo."

And he added that "we will not delegate to third parties the defense of our borders and guaranteeing our population the right to live without fear. We do not need aircraft carriers watching our waters. We need cooperation to stop the flow of weapons and money that feeds organized crime."