The US abstained for the first time on Wednesday in a UN vote denouncing the continuing congressional embargo on Cuba.
The Obama administration has relaxed some of the half-century-old sanctions on Cuba over the last two years, a process that culminated in a presidential visit to the Caribbean island state in March and the resumption of commercial flights to Havana. But the Republican-dominated Congress has refused to lift the bulk of the trade restrictions, saying the communist government has not done enough to improve human rights.
At a session of the UN general assembly to debate an annual resolution calling for the lifting of the embargo, the US ambassador, Samantha Power, took to the lectern to make the same argument the administration has been making in Congress – that the embargo has been backfiring for years.
“For more than 50 years, the United States had a policy aimed at isolating the government of Cuba. For roughly half of those years, UN member states have voted overwhelmingly for a general assembly resolution that condemns the US embargo and calls for it to be ended,” Power said.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/cuba-embargo-us-abstains-united-nations-vote
