US and Cuban representatives traded insults at a United Nations General Assembly debate Tuesday; they interrupted a speech amid heated exchanges over Washington’s decades-old economic blockade on Havana.
The crisis was sparked when US Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, called on member states to oppose a resolution condemning the embargo and attack Cuba’s socialist government over ” corruption”.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and the rest of the delegation banged their fists on their tables and shouted protests. Rodríguez went to the podium and screamed, “You are a liar!”
Waltz said: “You realize who you’re talking to? This is America. Step back.”
According to The Associated Press, the exchange led to the assembly president calling a halt in the proceedings.
The disagreement comes as the US has stepped up its campaign to pressure Cuba’s government, including with restrictions on oil deliveries to the Caribbean island. The Cuban authorities have said US sanctions are worsening the island’s energy crisis.
A vote was scheduled for Wednesday in the UN General Assembly on a non-binding, yearly resolution that demands that the embargo be lifted. The resolution has been supported by much of the world for decades, but only the US Congress has the power to remove the embargo.
Just as the test highlighted the increasingly hostile relations between the two nations.
