 Addressing the National Assembly of People’s Power on July 29, 2026, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez declared that the United States is destroying the pillars of international law that have guided world affairs since the Second World War. The United States is determined to impose its will on the sovereign governments of the world through a variety of means, including coercive economic measures and military aggression. The leadership of the United States demonstrates that it has not learned the lessons of history. Confronting this situation, the Cuban Foreign Minister declared, Cuba has the duty and the right to defend its sovereignty. All who come to the defense of Cuba, in defending the principles that must guide humanity, are defending humanity for all time. Cuba will continue to defend its sovereignty, while maintaining willingness to negotiate differences with the United States on a basis of mutual respect. The text of Rodríguez’s address follows. I have taken the address from the Website of the National Assembly of People’s Power and translated it from the original Spanish. The international political context in which our Revolution defends and represents the interests of the people has been aggravated significantly. The government of the United States has taken the decision to break from and destroy International Law, the United Nations Charter, and the pillars that emerged from the Second World War, which for more than eighty years have guided the relations among States, on the basis of respect for sovereignty and the formal principle of the sovereign equality of States. It has demonstrated, in addition, its relative and temporary capacity to impose its will on diverse governments, above their sovereign and constitutional prerogatives, by means of intimidation, coercion, and particularly the utilization of unilateral coercive measures and punitive commercial tariffs. It has resorted to military aggression, wars without any justification, the bombing of civilian populations, the kidnapping of a Chief of State in office, political assassinations, State terrorism, “regime change,” and unconventional war. They base this conduct on a new and insolent doctrine they call “peace through strength,” which repeats the past history of plundering, dispossession, conquest, extermination, occupation, slavery, and ethnic cleansing. It is the peace of the old colonial empires, the world wars, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fascism and Nazism, the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries, and the design that must have motivated Hitler when he proposed to reconfigure the map of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. … In recent weeks, as though they had not learned the lessons of history, there re-emerged in the United States as official policy the ghost of McCarthyism and the witch hunt. A strange Summit, to which Washington convoked without warning dozens of foreign ministers, was dedicated to the intention of launching the persecution of a phenomenon that no one had heard about. They called it “the resurgence of extreme leftist terrorism.” Previously, they had tried to coin the strange concept of “narco-terrorism,” which would have reminded of the bloody Latin American dictatorships and the Condor Plan that they imposed. Subsequently, the State Department published an extensive report on Cuba, which was characterized by superficiality, lying, and inconsistency, as if it were written through the application of badly employed Artificial Intelligence, but with the intention of singling out Cuba as a danger for the United States. Besides the absurdity of supposing that our country could threaten the greatest nuclear military power of the planet, the report seeks to criminalize and repress genuine expressions of solidarity with Cuba, expressed in many sectors of U.S. society. The U.S. government seeks to condemn and criminalize the sympathy of the Cuban Revolution for causes in support of justice and civil rights and against racism, Zionism, war, and oppression. It questions our right to defend ourselves against imperialist aggression. It attacks the solidary and humanist work to which we are committed in many parts of the world. It condemns the international effort of Cuba in support of the liberation of the people of Africa and against apartheid, and it identifies our country as a danger for its example, its resistance, its dignity, and its work of social justice. ………. The U.S. government reinforces to the extreme its economic war and collective punishment against Cuba, applying to the maximum its energy siege and strangling our possibilities of commercial interaction with other countries, advancing in its determination to disconnect Cuba from the international economy. ………. Even in these circumstances, our people enjoy ample and profound relations everywhere, which as a norm are friendly relations of cooperation and respect, even with countries and governments with which we have political differences. There is no doubt that the majority of countries reject the economic blockade of the United States against Cuba. The overwhelming vote of 136 versus nine against the U.S. attempt to prevent debate on the theme in the UN General Assembly on July 7, even in the current climate of intimidation, is a sure indication of world opinion. Whoever rises up for Cuba, rises up for all times, Martí would surely repeat in these circumstances. Silence, indifference, or defense of narrow and selfish interests places all humanity in danger. Any State could be next, if an ample international coordination does not stop the barbarity. If the citizens of the United States were to have access to true and sufficient information, they themselves would impede the catastrophe with which their government threatens the planet. On January 1, 2024, the Leader of the Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, expressed: “The policy of permanent hostility and blockade of the government of the United States is the principal cause of the difficulties of our economy. Do not doubt this reality, even though the enemy invests millions of dollars and much effort to hide it.” Our people understand with complete clarity that a macabre and well-designed plan is unfolding, which is oriented to cut, step by step, sources of financial income, access to markets and technology, and supplies essential for the economy and for the life of Cubans, including food and medicine. Added to these and other significant limitations, a total energy blockade has been imposed since January of this year, which impedes the importation of equipment and parts, including solar panels and technical supplies associated with the generation of electricity. Our people also are aware that the threat of military aggression continues in effect. Even though no logically conceivable pretext could be put forth for such a criminal and irresponsible act, the aggressive appetite of the anti-Cuban sectors within the United States to not appear to have limits. They themselves celebrate as signs of the success of their policy the agony and suffering of a mother that loses her son for the lack of medical supplies. They are happy for each megawatt that is not generated in the country, for the hours of blackout that the people endure, for restrictions in the supply of water for significant segments of the population, for the garbage that cannot be collected, and for difficulties in public transportation. The government of the United States knows very well our disposition to find solution to bilateral differences through dialogue, and it knows the patience with which we have accepted its proposal to converse on the basis of respect. All have observed our disposition to accede, in spite of lies and manipulations, to an offering of aid, which it curiously qualifies as humanitarian, for an amount that is equivalent to the economic and social impact of merely five days of the blockade, that is inferior to the aid of the World Food Program that it tried to impede; and in spite of the fact that the same government uselessly provokes pain and suffering in generating a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. The real goal and true inclination of the government of the United States is not expressed through dialogue or diplomacy or through the offer of aid, but by means of coercion and the determination to provoke the greatest possible punishment of the Cuban people in order to obtain their surrender. Cuba is not a threat to the United States, nor does it desire to be its adversary or its enemy. Our vocation is peace, as is seen in the relations that we enjoy with all the international community, and in the Proclamation of Peace of Latin America and the Caribbean, signed by the Heads of State and Government of the region in Havana. Our only commitment is with the Cuban people. Our mandate is that which emanates directly from the full, unique, and absolute sovereignty of the Cuban people. We have the right and the duty to reject and confront an aggression that castigates and threatens, and we have the right and the supreme duty to defend ourselves, even with arms, if we are attacked militarily. We continue aspiring to the eventual possibility of a respectful and constructive relation with our voracious neighbor to the North and to take steps that lead in that direction, always with absolute, total, and complete respect for the rights and sovereign prerogatives of each part, which is how the relations among States ought to be guided. Many of our compatriots live in U.S. territory. We strive to strengthen ties with our compatriots and to offer them the greatest possibilities of interaction with the Homeland and fraternal ties with their families and friends. Many of the government measures adopted now and in recent years are oriented in that direction and are based on the conviction that Cubans residing outside Cuba, anywhere in the world, have an important role in the development of the nation, from wherever they are, and also if they return to the country. The new economic and social transformations in which we are immersed considerably expand these possibilities. I wish to express our immense gratitude for the expressions of solidarity with the cause of Cuba from all continents, for the constant humanitarian aid, without conditions or political opportunism, of numerous governments, parliaments and parliamentarians, international organizations, fraternal organizations, social movements, political parties, businesspersons, friendship, solidarity and civil society associations, intellectuals and artists, personalities and academics, and individuals of diverse political signs and ideological commitments, but who coincide in the rejection of injustice and the crime committed against Cuba. Barely four years had passed following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, when Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz said, in 1963: “It is true that we are still under the imperialist blockade. It is true that the imperialists are trying to tighten this blockade, and that we do not know how long we will have to resist this situation. And we will resist it! Because our revolutionary flag will never be folded! Because the high head of this nation will never bow! Because we will face the risks that are necessary for as long as necessary; we will face the sacrifices that are necessary, as long as necessary.” We know that Independence, Revolution, Socialism and the very existence of our Nation and our Culture will depend on it. In the year of his Centennial, it is necessary to understand, assimilate, act and repeat tirelessly that idea established by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz that a better world is possible, a world without cruel blockades, a world that does not “kill men, women and children, young and old, like silent atomic bombs.” Fidel aspired and called for a struggle for a better world that will only be the result of revolutionary and progressive struggle. That vision feeds optimism, the certainty of victory and commits us to fight tirelessly, even in circumstances as hard and challenging as those we live in today. Let us repeat with José Martí: “before giving up in the effort to make the Homeland free and prosperous, the South Sea will join the North Sea, and a snake will be born from an eagle’s egg.” Socialism or Death! Homeland or Death, we will overcome! Originally published on Charles' Substack Author Charles McKelvey is influenced by black nationalism, the Catholic philosopher Lonergan, Marx, Wallerstein, anti-imperialism, and the Cuban Revolution. Since his retirement from college teaching in 2011, he has devoted himself to reading and writing on world affairs. Archives August 2026
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