U.S. TO VOTE AGAINST ENDING CUBA EMBARGO

WASHINGTON –The United States will vote against a United Nations resolution later this week calling for an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said Tuesday.

The UN has voted on the resolution annually for the past 26 years. In 2016, the U.S. abstained from the vote for the first time. In 2015, the last time the U.S. voted against the resolution, Israel was the only other nation in the 193-member organization to join the U.S. in opposition to ending the embargo.

Richard Feinberg, a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Latin America Initiative, believes it’s a return to the U.S.’s standard policy.

“It’s a long-standing U.S. position,” he said. “We underscore our extreme isolation from the UN community.”

Nauert believes the U.S. is standing up for human rights abuses that past American leaders have not.

“For far too long Cuba has engaged in human rights abuses, human rights abuses that perhaps past administrations have turned and looked the other way,” said Nauert. “And this administration continues to call upon Cuba to improve in terms of human rights, and also open up to where they would have better media access, better access to the things we enjoy here.”

Nauert said the vote is intended to underscore the Trump administration’s new policy towards Cuba.

In June, President Donald Trump announced increased restrictions on U.S. travel to the island nation and placed more limitations on spending U.S. money in the country.

When the U.S. abstained for the first time last year, it was a part of the Obama administration’s broader attempt to improve relations with Cuba; President Barack Obama encouraged Congress to lift the embargo.

This week’s U.N. resolution vote comes at a time when the U.S. has had to bring many of its Cuban embassy staff home due to mysterious illnesses, leaving the embassy with just an emergency skeletal crew.