Guantánamo.- Cuba today reaffirmed its condemnation of all extraterritorial unilateral coercive measures, particularly the U.S. economic blockade, which it described as “an absolute and ruthless economic war.”“The U.S. economic blockade against Cuba goes beyond the label of unilateral coercive extraterritorial measures—it even surpasses the definition of a commercial embargo,” stated Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío during the UN General Assembly’s Plenary Meeting on the *Elimination of Unilateral Extraterritorial Coercive Measures as a Means of Political and Economic Compulsion*.
He emphasized that the blockade constitutes “a total and merciless economic warfare,” extending far beyond a mere ban on trade between Cuba and the United States.
Fernández de Cossío recalled that since its inception in 1960, the blockade has aimed to suppress living standards, slash real incomes, and create hunger, scarcity, and despair—punishing the entire population to break their political will and subjugate the nation.
“The laws enforcing the blockade leave no doubt about the interventionist, hegemonic, and colonialist ambitions driving the U.S. government,” he asserted. “They make unequivocally clear the intent to sever Cuba’s economic ties with the rest of the world.”
The Vice Minister further noted that the U.S. not only refuses to trade with Cuba—allowing only severely restricted exceptions—but actively obstructs, persecutes, and sabotages the island’s commercial transactions with *any* country globally.
