Mr. President:
Cuba advocates for an urgent and profound reform of the current international economic system, which is deeply unjust and exclusionary. It perpetuates poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment and is based on global rules written by and for developed countries.
This system is unsustainable for the well-being of all because it marginalizes the peoples of the Global South from global progress.
The current international financial architecture, established seven decades ago, is ineffective and obsolete. It is only efficient at perpetuating disparities and forcing the Global South to tie up financial resources and go into debt to protect itself from the instability that the system itself generates.
We need a new financial architecture that guarantees fair treatment for developing countries in decision-making and access to financing. We are not asking for handouts or begging for favors. We are demanding rights.
Without a profound reform of the international order, the possibility of a dignified future will remain a utopia for millions of people.
In this context, it is incumbent upon UNCTAD to strengthen its technical and analytical assistance in the areas of productive diversification, industrialization, the elimination of unilateral coercive measures, and the development of technological capabilities, paying special attention to developing countries.
Mr. President:
Cuba faces an extraordinarily complex and challenging situation as a result of the relentless and increasingly aggressive economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States government. This is the greatest obstacle to the normal development of our country's legitimate trade relations with the rest of the world.
The blockade prevents Cuba from accessing sources of current financing; investment capital; remittances; and technology for industry, food production, infrastructure, scientific development, and services, including the most critical, such as healthcare.
Our country is being deprived, in every corner of the world, of access to banking systems for making payments and collections. This increases the cost of every medicine, every food item, every part, and every technology the country needs.
This economic blockade, the most comprehensive and prolonged humanity has ever known, has intensified in recent months to extreme levels, with increasingly aggressive and ruthless measures.
For more than five months, our country has been subjected to a brutal fuel blockade, with devastating consequences. The energy embargo internationalizes the economic blockade and demonstrates its extraterritorial nature. It shows that this is not a bilateral issue.
Cuba has the full right to trade fuel with any country, without obstacles contrary to the freedom of international trade. Likewise, any country has the right to export fuel to Cuba and to freely develop trade relations, without the interference of a foreign power.
The energy embargo imposed on Cuba is equivalent, in its effects, to a naval blockade. It constitutes a cruel and indiscriminate “collective punishment” that causes deaths. It is an unprecedented and completely unjustified unilateral aggression.
In addition to the brutal energy embargo, since May 1st, secondary sanctions of a distinctly extraterritorial nature have been applied against entities in third countries that operate or have operated with Cuba.
As a sovereign nation, Cuba has the willingness and capacity to develop economic and trade relations with any country. This is how international trade should develop, without the government of a powerful nation having the prerogative to dictate how and with which nations another state can conduct its foreign trade.
Through intimidation and blackmail, the United States government intends to force all states to participate, against their will, in its criminal policies against Cuba, universally condemned at the UN.
The sinister plan of the United States is to create a humanitarian crisis. They intend to suffocate the Cuban people to provoke a social explosion. Provoking shortages and extreme hardship for millions of people for political ends is unacceptable under any circumstances.
The United States' use of trade tariffs as an instrument of coercion and other unilateral coercive measures for political ends not only harms Cuba. It is a flagrant violation of the norms governing the multilateral trading system and international law.
Faced with this unacceptable situation, Cuba requests the support of UNCTAD, a cornerstone of the United Nations system for trade and development issues.
It is urgent that UNCTAD member states act together, setting aside political differences, to prevent the abuses that violate the rights of all states. Permissiveness and weakness only embolden the aggressors.
Thank you very much.