On October 22, 2013, in the 193-nation United Nations General assembly, the United States and Israel stood alone as the only two nations to oppose a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo against Cuba. This is the 22nd such UN vote in the over five-decade U.S. embargo against communist Cuba.
This annual UN vote has become somewhat of a “standing tradition” and each year a non-binding, unenforceable resolution is passed condemning the U.S.’s commercial, economic and financial embargo of Cuba embargo.
This year the 188-2 vote signaled a shift in the voting of one of U.S.’s strongest allies in the Pacific, Palau. While Palau voted alongside the U.S. and Israel last year, this year, Palau abstained, along with its Pacific island neighbors, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Notably, during this vote, Palau was represented by the newly appointed H.E. Ambassador Caleb Otto.
The island nation of Cuba has been stepping up involvement in the Micronesia region offering medical scholarships to promising students from the region.
Since U.S. President Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has relaxed some of its travel restrictions to Cuba and has permitted the sending of monetary remittances to Cubans. However, during this same period, fines against embargo violators, both domestic and foreign, have risen, totaling nearly $2.5 billion to date.
The embargo was established in 1962 and is a remnant of the Cold War between the U.S and the Former Soviet Union. At that time the former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro allowed the U.S.S.R. to place missiles in Cuba less than 100 mile from the US border leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis.