Cuba UN shouting match
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret, told Cuba’s delegation, 'This isn’t Havana,' urging member states to reject its anti-embargo resolution Screenshot from the United States Mission to the United Nations

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla confronted UN Ambassador Mike Waltz on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, 27 October, walking up to the rostrum mid-speech and shouting 'You are a liar!'

The shouting match broke out during the Assembly's annual debate on the US economic embargo against Cuba, moments after Waltz held up a photograph he said showed Fidel Castro wearing two Rolex watches.

General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh briefly suspended the meeting. Member states are due to vote on Cuba's resolution calling for the embargo to end on Wednesday, 28 October.

What Waltz Showed the General Assembly

Waltz urged governments to reject the text and blamed Cuba's hardship on its own leaders. He put the value of the watches at around $40,000 (£30,000).

'According to the regime's own statistics, that would pay for 55 years of an average Cuban wage,' he said, before holding up an image he said showed President Miguel Díaz-Canel also wearing a Rolex. Citing reports, he said GAESA, the military-run conglomerate, held about $18 billion (£13.5 billion) in assets, a figure from leaked records published by the Miami Herald in 2025 that Cuban officials dispute. Waltz also named Cayo Piedra as the Castro family's private island.

Cuban delegates banged on their desks and called for a point of order. 'I hope everyone, Mr President, is listening to the delegation right now,' Waltz said.

How the Shouting Match Unfolded

Rodríguez then left his seat for the podium. 'This individual needs to back away from this podium. He's not going to intimidate me in the United States of America,' Waltz said. 'Back up! Back up, Ambassador. Back away! This isn't Havana.'

It was then that Rodríguez branded him a liar. Waltz asked whether the minister understood who he was dealing with, then added, 'This is America. Back up.'

Rahman suspended the session, restated the rules, and let Rodríguez raise a point of order on condition that he stuck to procedure. Speaking through an interpreter, the minister again accused Waltz of lying. 'He is offending the dignity of the people and government of Cuba,' he said.

The debate then resumed without further incident. 'There is no blockade,' Waltz said as he closed, adding that US exports to Cuba had topped $876 million (£658 million) in the first eight months of 2026. Rodríguez is due to deliver Cuba's formal statement on Wednesday.

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A Phone Grab and Duelling Posts on X

Waltz said on X that a Cuban diplomat tried to pressure UN staff into cutting the US microphones, then turned on an American colleague who noticed. Video obtained by the New York Post showed a Cuban delegate grabbing at the iPhone of Waltz's spokesman, J.P. Freire, as he filmed. Cuba's mission did not immediately respond to the claim.

'As I shared this with the world, regime thugs rushed the stage to interrupt my speech,' Waltz wrote in a separate post.

Rodríguez answered on X, accusing Washington of 'crude lies' and reminding Waltz that he was not 'in a Signal group.'

The jibe referred to the March 2025 leak in which Waltz, then national security adviser, inadvertently added The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to a chat about strikes in Yemen. Trump moved him to the UN weeks later.

A Feud Building Since 2025

Rodríguez first aimed that jibe at Waltz during the October 2025 embargo debate. In July, the US failed to stop a special Assembly session on the embargo, which members approved by 136 votes to 9.

On 19 October, the US mission hosted former Cuban political prisoners José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara at UN headquarters. Footage Waltz posted showed Cuban diplomats, led by UN Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, shouting 'terrorists' and 'liars' at participants.

US economic pressure on Havana has also grown. In late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba, effectively cutting off fuel and triggering widespread blackouts. The UN's resident coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichon, has warned of possible humanitarian collapse.

Last year's resolution passed by 165 votes to 7, with 12 abstentions, as Argentina, Hungary, and Ukraine voted against it for the first time. The vote is non-binding. Under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, only the US Congress can lift the embargo, first imposed in 1960.

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