The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial embargo on Cuba. The measure received 130 votes in favor, 17 against, and 25 abstentions. According to the UN, this represents the weakest backing for the yearly resolution in two decades.

Last year, the assembly adopted the same text with 165 votes in favor, seven against, and 12 abstentions. The vote occurred as Cuba faces a severe energy crisis that makes life harder for people across the island. The UN said this crisis has been worsened by a U.S. fuel embargo that followed the rendition of Venezuela’s president to New York.

U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz rejected the premise of the debate and said there is no blockade. He argued that Cuba’s troubles come from its own government, pointing to more than $876 million in U.S. exports to the island during the first eight months of 2026. The country also received shipments from Canada, Spain, Mexico, China, Russia, the European Union, and UN agencies, Waltz said.

Waltz told delegates that the country’s wealth had changed hands from ordinary citizens to a ruling elite. He accused a military-run business monopoly of hoarding resources. A vote against the resolution was “the only thing standing between the communist kleptocratic regime and another propagandistic victory at the expense of the Cuban people,” he said.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla used a running on-screen counter during the debate to show that the embargo had cost Cuba more than $22.9 million since Tuesday. Rodríguez blamed the embargo for strangling the country’s health system. He said infant mortality had doubled, tens of thousands of surgeries were delayed or canceled, and cancer medicines could not be brought into the country.

Rodríguez also said Cuban-made treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia could not be exported. He said the United States was in the hands of a plutocracy and lacked the standing to talk about democracy. “What Cuba demands is to be left in peace,” he said.

The resolution presented by Cuba cites the UN Charter principles of sovereign equality, non-interference in internal affairs, and freedom of trade and navigation. It names the U.S. 1996 Helms-Burton Act, urging states with similar laws to repeal them. The assembly has voted on the measure 34 times since 1992, with support peaking at 191 votes in 2015 and 2017.