Cuba’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel on Sunday delivered an impassioned screed against America President Donald Trump’s recent measures against the communist regime during the annual summit of the anti-U.S. BRICS coalition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Leaders of BRICS member states gathered in Rio de Janeiro on July 6 and 7 — with the notable absence of genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, marking the first time Xi has not attended a BRICS summit. Cuba joined BRICS alongside a dozen other nations as a “partner” country of the coalition during the bloc’s 16th summit, hosted by Putin in October at the city of Kazan. The designation differentiates the recently joined group from the bloc’s “full” members, but could lead to a full membership at an unspecified time.
During his remarks on Sunday, Díaz-Canel delivered a speech in which he asserted that BRICS is a “synonym for hope” and reiterated the communist regime’s longstanding anti-U.S. and anti-Israel ideological stance. The figurehead president once again criticized the decades-long U.S. “embargo” on Cuba, asserting that the “embargo” seeks to cause a “social upheaval.”
The Castro regime has historically blamed all of Cuba’s struggles on the “embargo” when, in reality, Cuba’s dire humanitarian crisis is the result of over six decades of disastrous communist policies and mismanagement. Díaz-Canel described the “embargo” as an act of aggression whose purpose is rooted in the past, “has no meaning or justification, and it must cease.”
Díaz-Canel also condemned the new memorandum signed by President Donald Trump last week reinstating his first-term policies intended to diminish the influence and repressive ability of the Cuban regime, reversing generous concessions granted by the administration of former President Joe Biden.
“After six decades of an economic blockade imposed by a foreign country, which has been reinforced time and again with the sole and declared purpose of provoking social unrest, Cuba today faces a new act of imperial arrogance contrary to international law,” Díaz-Canel said.
“We come to this Summit with the news that a new package of coercive measures, entirely aimed at the economic suffocation of the country, has been added to the historic blockade by means of a Presidential Memorandum,” he continued. “The document revives the old imperial claim that it is up to them to determine who and how our nation’s destiny should be led. And all in the name of supposed democracy.”
The Cuban figurehead president availed himself of the opportunity to double down on the Castro regime’s condemnation of Israel’s military strikes against fellow BRICS member Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s self-defense operations against the jihadist group Hamas following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attack.
“Cuba reiterates its solidarity with the people and government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the face of Israel’s aggression and strongly condemns the attack initiated by the United States, because these acts constitute a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, and a serious breach of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Díaz-Canel said.
“We also reiterate our strongest condemnation of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, also perpetrated by Israel, with the permanent political, military, and financial support of the United States, whose government guarantees the impunity of the Zionist regime and obstructs, through its undemocratic veto power, the action of the United Nations Security Council,” he continued.
Similarly, Díaz-Canel condemned the United Nations’s “inaction” that, according to him, is the result of the “arrogance of a few,” and urged for profound reforms that “the global south has been demanding for more than half a century.” The United States “uses and abuses its power” to act “with utter contempt for the principles and norms of international law and the United Nations Charter,” he added.
“It [the U.S.] withdraws from various international organizations and forums, declares plans to usurp land and annex territories, justifies and promotes supremacist ideas, carries out massive, violent, and racist deportations of migrants, and no longer even hides its ambitious and spurious geostrategic interests,” Díaz-Canel said.
Díaz-Canel continued by claiming that the U.S. has no moral authority or international mandate to identify terrorist countries, condemning the “unjust and arbitrary” designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST). Díaz-Canel concluded by urging to nurture and strengthen the anti-U.S. BRICS coalition, asserting that Cuba is “honored to be part of with the noble aspiration of contributing and learning.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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