The diplomatic temperature between Washington and Havana rose sharply at the United Nations on Tuesday as members of the Cuban delegation walked out of the General Assembly chamber while U.S. President Donald Trump was delivering a strongly worded attack on Cuba.
Trump, addressing world leaders at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York, said his administration was seeking “a fundamental change” in Cuba, accusing its communist government of coming under unprecedented pressure.
“The communist regime is under great pressure—the biggest pressure they’ve ever been under,” Trump said. “It’s an absolutely failed state. It’s failing like never before, and it will fall.”
He went on to say that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was involved in negotiations with Havana, while warning that Washington would not allow Cuba to serve as what he described as a haven for foreign adversaries close to the United States.
“Communism will never be coming to America, but freedom will be coming to Cuba,” Trump declared.
As the U.S. president continued his remarks on Cuba, the Cuban delegation rose and left the Assembly Hall, turning the speech into a visible diplomatic protest. Reuters and other reports confirmed that the delegation walked out during Trump’s remarks.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla subsequently rejected Trump’s statements, saying Cuba was not a threat to the United States or any other country.
“The US government is unable to accept that Cuba is, and has the right to be, a fully independent and sovereign country,” Rodríguez said in a statement reported after Trump’s address.
The walkout came against the backdrop of long-running hostility between Washington and Havana, with the United States maintaining its decades-old economic embargo against Cuba and the Trump administration intensifying pressure on the Cuban government.
