Your Excellence, Dr. Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India, most excellent Ministers of Foreign Affairs, distinguished heads of delegations and delegates:
I appreciate the invitation to participate in this important meeting of BRICS Foreign Ministers.
The current exclusionary international order has been practically destroyed by the United States' attempt to make it unipolar once again through an imperialist agenda based on military force, supremacism, and a fascist neoconservatism. It is necessary to fight for the new order that is emerging and anticipated in the democratic multilateralist vision based on International Law, sovereign equality, cooperation, and dialogue.
I come to denounce in this grand forum, on behalf of the people and the government of Cuba—as you have surely learned through the U.S. government's own statements and acts—that my country is under the threat of direct military aggression and suffers the effects of a brutal blockade on fuel supplies. This constitutes a growing threat to international peace and security and a breach of International Law and the universally accepted rules of international trade and freedom of navigation.
We reject in the strongest terms President Donald Trump's executive orders against Cuba of January 29, which imposed the oil blockade, and of this past May 1, which establishes so-called secondary sanctions against entities from third countries that operate or have operated with Cuba, as well as the decisions of this past May 7 by the United States Department of the Treasury.
These additional measures reinforce the blockade against Cuba and its extraterritorial effects to extreme and unprecedented levels. Cuba is not, nor can it be, a threat to the national security of the United States, as the executive orders mendaciously claim. It is Cuba that is the threatened and attacked nation.
We call upon the international community to mobilize to prevent a military adventure against Cuba that would provoke a humanitarian catastrophe, bloodshed, the death of Cubans and young Americans, which would destabilize the region and have incalculable consequences. The brutally reinforced blockade has a devastating and incalculable impact on the daily life of the Cuban population. It is an act of genocide and collective punishment that generates extraordinary human harm, suffering, deprivation, and extreme shortages for Cuban families.
The energy siege has impacted electricity generation, bringing with it prolonged power outages, difficulties in pumping water, in the supply of liquefied gas, and in the production and distribution of food, goods, and services. Transportation and medical services are affected, and the lives of millions of people are damaged. Currently, infant mortality, although it remains low, has doubled, and nearly 100,000 patients, including 12,000 children, are waiting for surgery.
Producing scarcity, deprivation, and total suffocation to provoke a social situation that leads to the overthrow of the Cuban Revolution has always been the true objective of the hostility and perverse policy of the United States against Cuba. But, in this extremely adverse context, the Cuban people have shown their unity, determination, and great capacity for resistance and resilience with talent, creativity, and innovation. Cuba will never renounce the construction of its socialist project of equity and social justice.
In little more than a year, thanks to the support received from nations such as China, Russia, Vietnam, and India, and from other member countries and partners of the group, Cuba has achieved sustained progress in terms of energy sovereignty. We favor the promotion of new cooperation projects that accelerate innovation, as well as the creation of a BRICS repository for science and research at the service of the nations of the South.
For Cuba, equitable and universal access to science, technology, and innovation is, despite the obstacles, the way to overcome the digital and technological gaps that deepen inequalities within and between nations, recognizing them as goods for humanity and not privileges or tools of domination for a few.
We deeply appreciate the expressions and tokens of support and solidarity with Cuba from the vast majority of the international community, and in particular from the BRICS member states and partners who have spoken out against the most recent blockade measures, including the energy siege and the presence of Cuba on the spurious list of States supposedly sponsoring terrorism. I also appreciate the donations and humanitarian aid sent to Cuba in these difficult circumstances.
We ratify our firm commitment to the defense of International Law and the construction of a more just, equitable, and democratic international order that promotes solidarity, cooperation, human rights, justice, and human dignity as fundamental premises. Always count on our readiness and modest contribution to these legitimate and urgent purposes of the peoples of the Global South.
Thank you very much.