“And 130 countries have reaffirmed this at the UN General Assembly, despite pressure from the United States,” Rangel said, referring to the resolution passed this Wednesday at the United Nations calling for an end to the embargo imposed by Washington on the Caribbean nation.

“I hope that all those who abstained or voted against it will remember what sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples mean,” she asserted.

The Assembly approved the document rejecting the blockade with 130 votes in favor, 17 against, and 25 abstentions, following two days of debate during which dozens of countries took the floor to express their positions on a draft resolution that Cuba has presented annually since 1992.

For more than six decades, the United States has maintained an economic, commercial, and financial blockade against the largest of the Antilles—a policy that was tightened last January through an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The lack of access to fuel, resulting from this intensification of the blockade, has had a drastic impact on critical sectors in the Caribbean nation, including electricity generation, hospital operations, food production and distribution, and water pumping.

The threats made by the Republican president, along with other coercive measures taken by Washington against the island, have drawn condemnation and opposition from grassroots movements, governments, and political figures in Mexico and across the globe.

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