Tensions Between Cuba And The U.S. Are Rising. Washington Just Expelled One Of Havana’s Diplomats.

Richard Tur de la Concepción, the First Secretary of the Cuban mission to the United Nations (UN) has been expelled from the U.S. following an altercation with an American diplomat at the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

"Secretary Rubio signed the paperwork to eject the Cuban diplomat, the first secretary of their delegation, who shoved and tried to assault one of our American diplomats. He's gone, he is going to be on a plane to Havana within the next 24 hours. You lay a hand on an American here in the United States, President Trump, Secretary Rubio and myself, we are not going to stand for it," U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told FOX News late on Tuesday.

Video footage of the incident in question shows Tur attempting to grab the camera of an American diplomat while accusing him of "violating" his "personal space."

The incident forms part of a wider diplomatic spat between the two nations that has played out at UNGA this week.

While making a speech on Tuesday to the chamber urging countries to vote against a UN resolution condemning the enduring U.S. sanctions regime against Cuba, Waltz was interrupted by the Cuban delegation slamming their hands on the table and calling for a point of order.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla then approached the podium where Waltz was speaking and accused the U.S. representative of being a "liar."

"This is America, my friends, this is the United Nations. This isn't your communist dictatorship, you cannot silence me," Waltz said angrily in response to the Cuban diplomats.

Alian Collazo, a Cuban-American former Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives and the current Executive Director of the U.S.-based Cuban dissident group Cuban Freedom March (CFM), welcomed Waltz's reaction to the Cuban delegation.

"The Cuban dictatorship's foreign minister couldn't believe that they [the regime officials] were being, in front of the world, paraded for what they are: thieves, liars and people that steal from the nation," Collazo told International Business Times.

On Wednesday, a majority of UN member countries voted for the 34th time since 1992 to formally condemn U.S. sanctions against the Caribbean island. 130 countries voted in favor of the non-binding resolution, which Cuba brings to the UNGA every year.

However, the number of countries siding with the U.S. has steadily increased, with 17 - voting against the resolution and 25 abstaining this year. By contrast, only seven nations voted against the resolution in 2025, and just two (the U.S. and Israel) did so in 2024.

Collazo praised the countries who sided with the U.S., claiming that "for the first time in decades ... [they] voted the right way on the issue of the U.S. embargo."

A history of tensions spills over

Since the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, U.S.-Cuba relations have largely been characterized by mutual animosity. The U.S. has, since the early 1960s, maintained an embargo on trade between the U.S. and Cuba that is subject to few exceptions.

In the 1990s, the sanctions were strengthened and made extraterritorial as legislation was introduced to penalize foreign (non-U.S.) companies and individuals accused of having commercial links to properties or businesses deemed to have been confiscated from U.S. citizens - including Cubans who later became U.S. citizens - by the Cuban revolutionary government.

The same legislation also made lifting the sanctions conditional on political change and a democratic transition on the communist-run island.

This question of U.S.-backed or enforced political change has become particularly relevant this year, as tensions between Washington and Havana have reached levels not seen in decades.

The administration of President Donald Trump administration has maintained a near-total oil blockade of Cuba since the beginning of the year, when U.S. forces forcibly removed Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro from office and subsequently deprived Havana of oil from its erstwhile primary supplier: Caracas.

Trump has also repeatedly threatened to use the U.S. military to "take" Cuba and senior figures in the U.S. government frequently warn Havana's communist leadership that the end of their time in charge of Cuba is imminent.

Most recently, Trump told supporters at a rally in Florida on October 23 that the U.S. would take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran, we'll do a little stopover."

"What we're going to do with Cuba is we're going to come back from Iran, those beautiful ships will pass Cuba, we'll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast, they'll raise up their hands," the president said.

Criticism of such threats featured prominently in Rodríguez Parrilla's speech to UNGA before Wednesday's vote.

"The U.S. government has no right nor prerogative to attempt to govern the Cuban people. They have no right nor prerogative to interfere in the internal affairs of the country, nor to decide the nation's fate," Cuba's top diplomat told the chamber on Wednesday.