The U.N. General Assembly condemned the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba for the 34th year Wednesday. It comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened military intervention to change Cuba’s political system, as the country has suffered power outages, shortages and financial trouble due to U.S. sanctions. The U.S. first imposed its embargo on Cuba back in 1960, after Fidel Castro toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista and nationalized properties belonging to U.S. interests. This is Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla: “The United States has openly resorted to the threat of use of military force and has imposed dozens of new economic coercive measures, in addition to the ones that have existed for decades. These have been ratcheted up to extreme levels since 2019 and have now grown into a sort of quasi-medieval siege since January.”