He said more than 45 countries did not back the UN resolution and called it non-binding. Aurax News counts 42 against or abstaining.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister Sean Sobers told Parliament on Friday that Trinidad and Tobago’s vote against the UN resolution on the US embargo on Cuba was not against the Cuban people but for them, as he defended the Government’s position for the first time in the House.
Sobers said Trinidad and Tobago joined more than 45 countries that did not support the annual resolution on Wednesday, and that support had fallen to its lowest level. The UN tally was 130 in favor, 17 against and 25 abstentions, which is 42 against or abstaining. UN News described it as the weakest backing in two decades, and he did not explain how he reached his total.
He listed how countries in the Western Hemisphere voted. Voting no were Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Paraguay. Chile, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Peru abstained. Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Venezuela and Saint Lucia did not vote. He said more than half of the CARICOM members in the region did not support the resolution. On Aurax News’s reading of the UN voting board, seven of the 14 CARICOM members with UN seats did not vote yes, which is half.
Sobers said the annual vote is not binding and that only the US Congress can end sanctions. He argued that Cuba had one of Latin America’s largest economies before the revolution and that the failed economic policies of socialism under a dictatorship are responsible for the Cuban people’s hardship. He said the Government has reviewed its foreign policy since taking office in April 2025, and that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar signaled the position when she called for change in Cuba at the 50th regular meeting of CARICOM heads of government in St. Kitts and Nevis in February.
The minister said it is inconsistent to demand free elections and political freedoms at home while staying silent when Cubans are denied them, and that the Government’s position is against military dictatorship and supports Cubans’ right to choose their government. He said it was not surprising that those on the Opposition benches believe advancing Cubans’ interests means backing a dictatorship’s diplomatic initiatives, and said they “seem attracted” to power being transferred without free elections. “True solidarity is not silence,” he said. He said Trinidad and Tobago will keep advocating for a free, democratic Cuba in CARICOM, the UN and other forums.
Trinidad and Tobago was the only CARICOM country to vote against the resolution, which has passed every year since 1992. Aurax News did not have a response from the Opposition or the Cuban embassy at publication.