[As reported by the Cuban daily Granma]( https://www.granma.cu/cuba/2026-06-30/cuba-no-es-una-amenaza-el-bloqueo-si-30-06-2026-16-06-49), Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla announced in a June 30 press conference that his government is launching an international diplomatic offensive, including a July 7 meeting at the UN General Assembly, to denounce the U.S. oil blockade against Cuba and the series of unilateral coercive measures and threat of military aggression. The oil blockade, he said, “constitutes an act of genocide,” and coercive measures “massively, flagrantly and systematically violate the human rights of Cubans and international humanitarian law.”
Rodriguez expressed the certainty that the “immense majority” of the International community supports and will support Cuba. The July 7 meeting will be followed by the October UNGA meeting in which members will vote on a resolution to end the U.S. blockade on Cuba, as happens every year. “This is an urgent situation because the U.S. government’s multidimensional aggression against Cuba is underway and is intensifying,” the Foreign Minister warned. The suffering and privation that U.S. measures cause the Cuban people “increase every day.”
Rodriguez documented the U.S. government and the State Department’s hysterical attempts to stop the July 7 meeting. The U.S. mission to the UN in New York, Rodrigues reported, is threatening and intimidating many foreign ambassadors or other top foreign personnel there, demanding they not attend the July 7 meeting. U.S. embassies around the world, and U.S. representatives to multilateral organizations are similarly threatening host governments and foreign governments participating in these international bodies with the same message.
It is insane for the United States, a powerful nuclear nation, to claim that Cuba poses a national security threat to it, Rodriguez noted. “Cuba is not a threat; the blockade is,” he said. Cuba has never failed to collaborate with the U.S. in the areas in which that was possible, including in anti-drug and anti-terrorism initiatives. Right now, he added, diplomatic talks with Washington “are not making progress,” but Cuba is open to resuming them whenever the U.S. is ready.
