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“Sanctions are one set of tools in our broader effort toward Cuba to advance democracy, promote respect for human rights, and help the Cuban people exercise the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Mr. Hunter said.
The General Assembly’s previous vote, in November 2019, was 187 to 3, with the United States joined by Israel and Brazil in voting no, and the remainder abstaining or not voting. The vote held in the assembly’s current session, which began in September 2020, had been postponed because of the pandemic.
The final vote was 184 to 2 — with the United States and Israel opposed, three abstentions and four countries not voting.
The United States always had voted no against the resolution until 2016, when it abstained in a signal of the Obama administration’s move to fully repair U.S. relations with Cuba after more than a half-century of estrangement.
Mr. Trump sought to reverse that direction after he took office, and the United States resumed voting against the resolution during his term. He went much further, adding sanctions on Cuba and — in his final weeks in office — putting the country back on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The embargo can only be rescinded by Congress.
While a full termination of the embargo seems highly unlikely any time soon, Mr. Biden is still expected to gradually move away from Mr. Trump’s stance on Cuba.
Mr. Trump’s hard-line approach to Cuba’s communist leadership led to an array of restrictions on tourism, visas, remittances, investments and commerce, which have worsened an already poor economy. The pandemic compounded the problems, in large part by bringing tourism, a major source of foreign currency, to a grinding halt.
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