Cuba Embargo Vote Splits Caribbean As U.S. Pressure Reshapes Region

By News Americas Now Analyst

News Americas Now, NEW YORK, NY, Wed. October 28, 2026: For more than three decades, Caribbean governments have largely stood with Cuba at the United Nations in opposing the United States’ economic embargo. Today, October 28, 2026, that solidarity fractured dramatically.

The United Nations General Assembly voted 130-17, with 25 abstentions, to again call for an end to the U.S. economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, but support fell sharply from 2025, when 165 countries voted in favor, seven voted against and 12 abstained.

The most striking shift came from Cuba’s own neighborhood. Trinidad and Tobago voted against the resolution alongside the United States, while Guyana, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic abstained. Trinidad and Tobago supported the resolution last year, while Guyana, Jamaica, and Haiti also moved away from their previous support.

The question now confronting the region is whether those changes reflect independent reassessments of Cuba, growing concern about Havana’s human-rights record – or the expanding weight of U.S. diplomatic, security and migration policy across the hemisphere.

A Changing U.S.-Caribbean Relationship

The vote comes as Washington deepens cooperation with several Caribbean governments on issues extending far beyond Cuba. Guyana, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago are all members of the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas, an initiative whose members say they are seeking closer coordination on economic security, regional security, and multilateral diplomacy.

A September joint statement signed by the United States, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and other participating governments committed members to strengthening cooperation across three pillars: economic, security and multilateral coordination. That does not establish that participation in the Shield determined Wednesday’s Cuba vote. But the alignment is notable.

Trinidad and Tobago, one of the Caribbean states participating in the initiative, moved from supporting the anti-embargo resolution in 2025 to voting against it this year. Guyana, also a Shield member, moved from support to abstention.

At the same time, both Washington and Caribbean governments have been negotiating new migration arrangements tied to the Trump administration’s expanded use of third-country transfers. Guyana finalized a one-year migration cooperation framework with the United States under which it may receive vetted third-country nationals removed from the United States. Under the arrangement, six Cuban and Afghan nationals arrived in Guyana in September. Georgetown maintains that it retains complete discretion over whom it accepts and that the program is temporary rather than permanent resettlement.

Jamaica has also entered a third-country transit arrangement with Washington. Its government says the program allows small numbers of non-Jamaican migrants to transit through Jamaica with International Organization for Migration support before returning to their countries of origin or moving elsewhere. Kingston has stressed that people with criminal records will not be accepted and that the arrangement can be suspended under specified conditions.

Again, those agreements do not prove a quid pro quo involving Cuba. But they illustrate how deeply U.S. priorities now intersect with the foreign-policy decisions of Caribbean governments.

Washington Made No Secret Of Its Campaign

The Trump administration openly campaigned against the annual Cuba resolution. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz urged governments to reject what Washington characterizes as a propaganda exercise by Havana, pointing to political prisoners, Cuba’s human-rights record, the role of military-controlled enterprises and allegations involving Cuban nationals fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

The administration’s lobbying was more intensive than in previous years, and the final tally shows that substantially more governments either voted with Washington or declined to support Cuba. Cuba has gone further, alleging that some governments faced threats involving tariffs, visas and U.S. assistance if they failed to side with Washington.

Cuban officials have not publicly produced evidence establishing those allegations. What is indisputable is that Wednesday’s vote represented one of the most significant erosions of support for Cuba’s anti-embargo resolution in years.

The Caribbean Question

For Caribbean governments, the shift raises uncomfortable questions about sovereignty and regional foreign policy. The region has historically opposed the U.S. embargo even when individual governments disagreed with Havana’s political system. The argument has generally rested on opposition to unilateral economic sanctions and a belief that countries should determine their own political and economic systems without external coercion.

That history also sits within a much older debate over U.S. power in the hemisphere. From the Monroe Doctrine of the 19th century to Theodore Roosevelt’s later “Big Stick” approach, Washington has repeatedly asserted a special strategic interest in the Americas.

Today’s instruments are different. They include trade, investment, security partnerships, migration cooperation, sanctions, diplomatic alliances, and multilateral coordination rather than the overt interventions associated with earlier eras. Still, the underlying question remains relevant: how independently can small Caribbean states conduct foreign policy when their economic, security and migration relationships with the United States are becoming increasingly intertwined?

People collect recyclable materials from a rubbish container on a street in Havana on October 26, 2026. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP via Getty Images)

Cuba’s confrontation with Washington is also unfolding against an increasingly severe economic and humanitarian crisis on the island. U.S. sanctions and restrictions on fuel and financial access are not the sole causes of Cuba’s economic problems — the country also faces longstanding structural weaknesses, low productivity, debt, and government policy failures – but international agencies say the embargo has magnified those problems by restricting access to foreign exchange, technology, financing, and international markets. A United Nations report cited economic contraction, high inflation, shortages of medicines and declining purchasing power, while the latest fuel restrictions have contributed to widespread blackouts and a dramatic collapse in public transportation. Cuba’s transportation minister said this month that passenger trips could fall by 75 percent this year compared with 2025, as fuel supplies tighten further.

The debate over Washington’s influence is occurring alongside an unprecedented expansion of U.S. military force in waters surrounding Latin America and the Caribbean. Since September 2025, the United States has carried out more than 70 lethal strikes against vessels it alleges were involved in drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, killing at least 240 people as of October 28. U.S. Southern Command says intelligence identified the vessels as connected to narcotics trafficking, but in many cases the government has not publicly released evidence establishing the identities or alleged crimes of those killed. Independent monitors say none of those killed were formally charged or brought before a court before the strikes. The Trump administration argues that the operations are part of an armed conflict against drug cartels and are necessary to curb narcotics trafficking, while human-rights organizations and legal experts have challenged the legality of killing suspected traffickers at sea without arrest or judicial process.

Cuba Still Wins – But The Message Changed

Despite the shift, Cuba still secured the support of 130 countries. Many governments continued to argue that the embargo violates principles of international law and has imposed economic hardship on ordinary Cubans, while simultaneously expressing concerns about human rights and political freedoms on the island.

The resolution remains non-binding, and only the U.S. Congress can fully lift the statutory embargo. But the annual vote has always carried symbolic weight. This year, the symbolism changed. Cuba still won the vote. Washington, under Donald Trump, however, demonstrated that it can move governments that once reliably stood with Havana – including governments in the Caribbean.

And that leaves a question extending well beyond Cuba: was Wednesday’s Caribbean split simply a change in national foreign-policy calculations – or evidence that U.S. leverage in the hemisphere is once again reshaping how the region votes?

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