Cuba slams Trump’s claims after US leader says island ‘will fall’

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Cuba’s foreign minister on Tuesday reacted furiously to “falsehoods” spread by US President Donald Trump, who told the United Nations the island “will fall.”

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Cuban delegates left the room during Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, at a moment of exceptionally strained Washington-Havana relations.

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His administration imposed an energy blockade on the island in January, piling on more measures since then, and he has openly mused about seizing control of the territory.

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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez asserted his country’s sovereignty after Trump said Cuba “will fall,” without elaborating how.

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“The US government is incapable of accepting that Cuba is and has the right to be a full sovereign and independent country,” Rodriguez wrote on X, adding that “none of the falsehoods by the US President at the UN can deny that fact.”

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“We are a country of peace and we deserve peace,” said Rodriguez, who is heading the Cuban delegation to New York.

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President Miguel Diaz-Canel also denounced Trump’s bellicose rhetoric.

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“Unable to justify the punishment against the people of Cuba and their genocidal economic war, the President of the United States repeats at the UN that Cuba represents a threat,” he posted on X.

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“The lie is the resource of those who refuse to accept the right to self-determination of the Cuban people,” he said.

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Trump has claimed that the communist island located 150 kilometres (90 miles) off Florida’s coast represents an “extraordinary threat” to US national security.

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AFP

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