Cuba presents blockade report to the UN ahead of 33rd vote
News from Cuba | Monday, 20 October 2025
Bruno Rodríguez solidarity meeting on 27 September while in New York to attend the 80th UNGA
The cost of the US blockade to the Cuban economy has increased by a staggering 49 per cent on the previous twelve months, according to Cuba’s latest report to the United Nations.
The 55-page document, published ahead of the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) vote due to take place on 28-29 October, sets out the wide-ranging devastation caused by the US policy.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parilla presented the findings at a press conference on 16 September where he stated that the blockade remains “the main obstacle to the recovery of the Cuban economy.” He emphasised that structural barriers imposed by this policy and its legal framework are the primary obstacle to any economic activity in the country, both state-run and non-state-run.
“If there hadn’t been the tightening of the blockade and the extraordinarily oppressive effect it has on our families, which translates into economic damage… GDP would have grown 9.2 per cent last year,” he said. Total damages to the Cuban economy for the period the report covers (March 2024 to February 2025) amount to $7.6 billion, an increase of 49 per cent compared to last year. The cumulative total since 1962 is $170.7 billion.
Over 80 per cent of Cubans born under blockade
Yet the figures alone fail to do it justice. “It is impossible to quantify the emotional damage, anguish, suffering, and deprivation that the blockade causes Cuban families,” the Foreign Minister said. With more than 80 per cent of Cuba’s population born after it was first imposed in 1962, it is all many Cubans have ever known.
The report outlines how the blockade aims at “identifying, persecuting and eliminating, in a surgical and systematic manner, the main sources of income of the Cuban economy” and suffocates key sectors.
“Five days of blockade ($100 million) are equivalent to the financing needed to repair one of the thermoelectric plants, such as the Antonio Guiteras plant in Matanzas or the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes plant in Cienfuegos,” Rodríguez explained.
The island has been battling more frequent and sustained blackouts in recent months, in part due to the failure of such plants, which are in desperate need of renovation. Mitsubishi Generator Corp, the company that can provide a component crucial for its repair, said it cannot do so due to US sanctions. They indicated their decision on the matter would not change.
Tourism and agriculture damage
In tourism, one of Cuba’s vital sources of income, $2.5 billion of damages have been recorded. Visitors to the island have decreased by 9.6 per cent compared to the previous year, with Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism (SSOT) and the implementation of the Helms-Burton Act having a direct impact. Contracts with foreign hotel operators have been cancelled and online travel agencies such as Booking.com and AirBnB have halted operations in Cuba.
Estimated damages and losses of over $930 million have impacted the agricultural sector. A shortage of agricultural machinery, insufficient feed for livestock and a deficit of spare parts for equipment and industry have led to a significant decrease in food production. Cuba is now struggling to provide much of the basic food basket it has historically provided to all citizens.
Serious impacts on Cuba’s public services have also been recorded.
The report quotes Lisandra Guerra Sosa, a teacher at a night college in Bayamo, who said that as a result of the blockade, she and her colleagues are faced with limitations in the most basic of supplies and materials needed to “guarantee quality education.”
Health indicators in decline
With damages amounting to nearly $290 million, the blockade has also “hampered the ability of our health system to obtain… supplies when needed and provide quality service to the population.” This has, the report outlines, “led to the deterioration of several health indicators, including those related to mortality.”
Cuba’s hospitals and health centres are unable to obtain a whole host of “first-line medicines”, as well as many cancer drugs, key surgical supplies, defibrillators, paediatric ventilators and much more.
The health service is now facing a critical situation. Nearly 95,000 are on surgery waiting lists – once rarely heard of in Cuba – including 4,507 cancer patients and 9,913 children. Survival rates for children suffering with cancer have fallen and Cuba’s infant mortality rate has jumped from 4.2 per 1,000 births in 2014 to 8.2.
The 33rd annual vote on the blockade takes place during the 80th session of the UNGA which opened on 8 September. Addressing the general session, Rodríguez summarised the blockade as “an overwhelming and prolonged economic war aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability.” It costs lives and causes unnecessary suffering.
International condemnation
Forty countries dedicated part of their own general presentations to the global body to reiterate their support for Cuba.
“Without ambiguity, we reaffirm our historic position against the blockade on Cuba and our call to remove this country from the list of those that support terrorism,” said Mexico’s foreign minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente.
Bolivian President Luis Alberto Arce argued that “the United States already owes billions of dollars to the Cuban state due to the effects of these unilateral measures,” and Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, President of Brazil, stated that “it is unacceptable that Cuba be listed as a country that sponsors terrorism.”
President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana noted that “the Cuban people shed their blood on African soil in the fight against apartheid” and described Cuba as “a faithful friend to Africa.” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa echoed the findings of the report, stating that the blockade has caused “untold damage to the country’s economy over the years.” Both called for it to be lifted.
And in the year that the Vietnamese people mobilised in a remarkable demonstration of solidarity with the Cuban people with a grassroots fundraising campaign, Vietnamese President Luong Cuong reaffirmed his government’s “solidarity with the state and people of Cuba”, calling on the US to lift the blockade and remove Cuba from the SSOT list.
In October 2024 187 nations, including Britain, voted with Cuba on the resolution entitled the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” The US and Israel, as they have consistently done since the vote began, voted against.
Rodríguez believes that this year’s resolution will also “have virtually unanimous support from the international community.” However, he warned that the developing international context, one marked by “growing unilateralism, supremacism, violence, and the strengthening of the United States’ aggressive policy toward Cuba and other countries,” reminds us of the urgency of transforming this support into a material reality.
Read the full report at bit.ly/CubaUNreport25
