Your Excellency, Dr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the Republic of India;
I thank India for the invitation to attend this important Summit and well as for its generous hospitality.
The BRICS group has the potential of becoming a factor for peace and security for all; development; justice and progress for the Global South, which is indispensable to build a new multilateral, equitable and democratic international order based on the sovereign equality of States and International Law.
It is necessary to struggle against the “philosophy of dispossession” so that the “philosophy of war” -that is disrupting current times-, may disappear , sixty six years after the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz warned against it, back on September 26, 1960; and which is now expressed through the so called “peace through strength” and aggressive and violent imperialists corollaries.
In the centennial of the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, we are honored to come to this city, coinciding with the date of his first visit to India in nineteen seventy-three (1973).
It is indispensable to replace the plundering international financial architecture with one that would make its governance institutions and mechanisms more democratic. In that process it would be necessary to establish an alternative financial system to move towards a process of de-dollarization of the international economy. The use of national currencies has been a BRICS proposal of utmost importance to palliate the imbalances of the current monetary system.
The new BRICS Development Bank should be increasingly consolidated as an alternative so that our countries can have access to financial resources under more favorable conditions.
The structural problems facing our economies are a result of colonialism, wild neo-liberalism and imperialism. Falling exports, commodity price volatility, declining foreign direct investment, a foreign debt that has been paid several times over and capital flight seriously hinder our development. The relentless advance of climate change threatens the existence of all.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to strengthen efforts in terms of development financing and international cooperation -including South-South cooperation- and the transfer of resources, technologies and knowledge, without conditioning.
An open, transparent, inclusive and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system -one that guarantees special and differential treatment for all developing countries- is of the essence.
The BRICS Group can also make significant contributions to the democratization of -and access to- science, technology and innovation for the benefit of the Global South, helping to bridge the digital and technological divide.
No Group like BRICS could call for and contribute to creating democratic and participatory governance systems for the development and implementation of the new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and harness them for development and well-being, ensuring their peaceful, responsible and ethical use. We welcome the work carried out by the BRICS Group on digital technology and AI.
By its very nature, the BRICS Group has the bounden responsibility to prevent and take action against the proliferation of unilateral coercive measures.
In recent years, the criminal U.S. economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba has been tightened to unprecedented levels.
With the executive orders of January 29 and May 1, 2026, the U.S. government has established an energy siege against Cuba that is equivalent to a naval blockade which is, according to International Law, an act of war; and is threatening the entire planet with the imposition of “secondary sanctions.”
This has violently disrupted all the country’s supply chains. The threats to shipping companies registered in several countries have delayed the arrival of more than 7 000 containers, carrying mainly food, medicines and medical devices, which remain stalled at several ports, despite their being hired and paid for mostly by Cuban private enterprises.
It is a silent genocide that is taking a toll on human lives. The infant mortality rate of our nation has two-folded –going from 4 per one thousand live-births to 9.9 per one thousand live-births-; and the survival rate of children suffering from cancer has dropped from 85 per cent to 65 per cent. Causing human damage, suffering and anguish is the purpose of this cruel policy, which has been deliberately designed to that end.
It is a policy of collective punishment against the entire Cuban people. Its indiscriminate humanitarian impact is incalculable, causing great suffering to Cuban families. It is the instrument of choice to bring about a “regime change”.
This is the same logic underpinning Cuba’s unjustifiable presence in the fraudulent, unilateral list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism.
The U.S. government attempts to justify its aggressive actions against Cuba, as is stated in the text of both Executive Orders, by resorting to the ridiculous pretext that the Island is “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security and the foreign policy of the military, nuclear, economic and technological superpower.
Cuba is not a threat; the blockade is!
All these actions violate the United Nations Charter and International Law, including International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law and the international norms governing trade and navigation.
If the government of the United States was to be allowed to destroy a small nation with the purpose of changing its political system or with any other purpose, the world would turn out to be an even more dangerous place than it already is. What will happen next? What country will be next?
We thank the Group’s member countries and partners for their statements calling for an end to the blockade and the energy siege against Cuba, as well as for the countless and genuine expressions of support to and solidarity with our country by peoples from all over the world.
We are a peace-loving nation. We pose no threat to anyone. Reason and justice are on our side. We will continue to defend our right to self-determination, and nothing will divert us from the path of socialist development that our people, closely united, have freely chosen.
With a broad consensus, our people and our government are working very hard. We are swiftly implementing profound economic and social changes to solve old or structural problems and confront the economic warfare that is being waged against us.
No one will be left unprotected. We will not cease to implement our social policies. We are confident, first and foremost, on our capabilities, our comparative advantages, experience, the consciousness and mutual solidarity of all Cubans. We will reactivate our production sectors; we will increase our exports; we will take advantage of our own resources; we will continue advancing impetuously in changing the national energy matrix. We will advance, regardless of the circumstances, towards the recovery of our economy and the wellbeing of Cuban families.
We are also ready to contribute, drawing on our modest experience, to the strengthening of this increasingly important Group, which we aspire to join as full members.
Thank you, very much.