The UN General Assembly has voted to lift the US embargo on Cuba for the seventeenth consecutive year. The vote was 185 votes in favor, with the US joined only by Israel and Palau in opposition. Before the vote, US representative Ronald Godard said the embargo would endure.

Ronald Godard: “Each of the member states of the United Nations has the sovereign right to conduct its own trade with another country as it sees fit, subject
only to the treaty obligations it has freely undertaken.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque responded by saying the US is isolated in seeking to punish Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque: “To you, sir, I have to say that the representatives of the United States here in this room should feel a deep sense of shame. You are alone, in the most profound and absolute isolation. The entire world stands with our small rebel island. And I want to make something clear to you gentlemen: we are not anti-North American, we are anti-imperialist.”