The United Nations General Assembly debate on the U.S. embargo against Cuba descended into a shouting match on Tuesday, as U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz faced repeated interruptions from the Cuban delegation and the presiding officer briefly suspended the meeting while Cuban diplomats gathered near the podium.

“This individual needs to back away from this podium. He’s not going to intimidate me,” Waltz said, as Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla approached the podium trying to interrupt his speech on procedural grounds. “This is the United Nations. This isn’t your communist dictatorship. Mr. Minister, you cannot silence me.”

Waltz used his time to display photos of what he said was the luxury lifestyle of the Castro family and to urge member states to vote no on a resolution presented by Cuba calling for an end to the embargo. The resolution will be voted on Wednesday.

During his speech, Waltz accused the Cuban delegation of a pattern of intimidation. “We recently had just-released political prisoners here, and this delegation of supposed diplomats tried to intimidate them, film them, harass them,” he said. “If this happens here, imagine what happens there.”

Waltz later said the disruption went beyond the assembly floor. On X, he accused a member of the Cuban delegation of trying to get U.N. staff to cut the U.S. microphones during his speech. He said the same diplomat then tried to intimidate a U.S. staffer who noticed.

Rodriguez used points of order, a tool to point out procedural mistakes, to interrupt Waltz’s speech several times, accusing him of “lying grossly” and “offending the dignity of the people and government” of Cuba.

“Every time you interrupt me,” Waltz told Rodríguez after a second point of order, “I’m just going to keep explaining how corrupt this regime is, and I’m going to do it a little more slowly.”

Standoff at the podium

The confrontation began about two and a half minutes into Waltz’s speech. He had opened by quoting Ronald Reagan’s warnings to the Cuban people about a privileged communist elite.

The Cuban delegation began shouting and banging on their desks.

“I hope everyone, Mr. President, is listening to the delegation right now,” Waltz said. “Imagine what happens when someone asks these questions in Havana, not in a room full of ambassadors and cameras.”

The presiding officer said he had asked at the start of the session that speakers be allowed to finish before any point of order was taken. But the Rodriguez and other members of the Cuban delegation began banging the desks, calling for a point of order and shouting insults at Waltz.

As Rodriguez approached the podium while the presiding officer asked them to return to their seats, Waltz turned to Rodríguez.

“Back up, ambassador. Back away. This isn’t Havana,” Waltz shouted from the podium.

“I’m suspending the meeting,” the presiding officer said.

Waltz kept going. “Do you understand who you’re dealing with? This is America. Back up,” he said.

After Waltz finished, the presiding officer called for “order in the balcony” and asked delegates to “respect the sanctity of this place.”

“Where did it all go?”

Waltz built his speech around a single question about Cuba’s wealth. “Things don’t just vanish; it was taken,” he said. “Where did it all go?”

He cited a Miami Herald investigation into secret financial records of GAESA, the Cuban military’s business conglomerate that controls much of the island’s economy, which he said revealed “$18 billion in fact, $14 billion in cash to be exact.” He said that was enough to pay every Cuban’s salary for two years or stock every Cuban pharmacy for more than 40 years.

Waltz then showed a series of photos he said documented the Castro family’s wealth:

Two Rolex watches worn by Fidel Castro, worth “$40,000 in today’s money.”

Luxury watches, Hermès ties and Montblanc pens he said belonged to current leader Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Castro family retreat in the beach resort of Varadero and a family compound with a 20-meter pool and cedar wood he said was imported from the Brazilian Amazon.

The small islet of Cayo Piedra, which he called the family’s private island, with a marina, a yacht and “a lagoon for pet dolphins.”

Fidel’s grandson Sandro Castro “holding up stacks of money on his own Instagram.”

Fidel’s son Antonio vacationing in the Mediterranean on “a 50-meter luxury yacht.”

“Somehow, as the Cuban people are sitting in the dark, all of these luxury homes have power,” Waltz said.

‘There is no blockade’

The nonbinding resolution, which Cuba is bringing to the General Assembly for the 34th time since 1992, calls for an end to what Havana calls the U.S. “blockade.” Cuba’s report to the Assembly puts the embargo’s damage at more than $8 billion in a single year and $178.7 billion over six decades, a figure that has not been independently confirmed.

Last year, the resolution passed 165-7, with 12 abstentions. Rodríguez predicted that “the vast majority of U.N. member states will maintain their support for the resolution.”

Representatives of several African and Asian nations and Latin American countries like Brazil expressed support for the Cuban resolution on the debate floor Wednesday and condemned U.S. sanctions for worsening the humanitarian situation on the island. However, U.S. officials are confident that more countries will abstain or vote against the resolution this year, in a sign of erosion of international support for the island’s communist government.

The U.S. embargo includes exceptions to allow the exports of food, medicines and other goods to the Cuban people. Waltz cited recent U.S. government figures showing that American companies exported more than $876 million in goods to Cuba in the first eight months of 2026, including $230 million in fuel for eligible private businesses.

Waltz rejected Cuba’s description of the U.S. embargo as a blockade.

“A blockade is a ring of military ships around an island,” he said. “It does not exist.”

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