United States President Donald Trump has told the United Nations General Assembly that the communist government of Cuba will fall, drawing angry responses from officials in Havana who called his statements slander and lies.
The Cuban delegation walked out of the assembly hall in New York while the American president was speaking from the podium on Tuesday.
Trump told world leaders that Cuba was under the strongest pressure it had ever known in its history, though he did not explain how the government would collapse. He stated that Washington was conducting negotiations with Havana and assured that freedom would come to the island nation.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who was leading his country delegation at the annual gathering in New York, condemned the speech in a statement posted on social media platform X.
Rodriguez said that the United States government was unable to accept that Cuba was and had the right to be a fully independent and sovereign country. He added that none of the false statements made by the American president at the UN nor any slander could ever undo that fact.
Havana Rejects Security Threat Claims
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel also condemned the remarks by the White House occupant. Writing on X, he said that the US president was unable to justify the punishment he was imposing on the people of Cuba and the genocidal economic war he was waging.
Diaz-Canel added that the American leader was repeating at the UN that Cuba represented a threat, calling lying the recourse of those who refuse to accept the right of the Cuban people to self-determination.
Cuba is a Caribbean island nation of 9.4 million inhabitants located roughly 150 kilometres off the coast of Florida in the United States.
Bilateral relations between Washington and Havana have entered a path of further sharp escalation following the Republican billionaire return to power in 2025.
Trump has asserted that the neighboring island poses an extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States. He has also repeatedly threatened that he will take control of Cuba.
Oil Blockade Deepens Economic Crisis
Washington has made no secret of its desire for regime change in its island neighbor and ideological adversary.
Since January, the United States has imposed a de facto oil blockade on the island nation, plunging Cuba into an even more severe economic and energy crisis.
