Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening member states of the United Nations with sanctions should they side with Cuba in next week's annual UN vote on a resolution calling for an end to the US embargo on the island, Reuters reported from Havana on October 21. 'The US State Department is exerting unprecedented pressure — at times in a personal and brazen manner by the secretary of state himself — to get UN member states to change their votes,' Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez told reporters at a press conference in Havana that US officials had threatened to deny visas and impose trade and economic sanctions on UN members that side with Cuba, Reuters reported. The methods of pressure he alleged include 'the threat of imposing punitive tariffs, the suspension of cooperation programs…, support for forces opposed to the governments, the threat of encouraging the overthrow of those governments or interfering in their electoral processes, and the threat of politically destabilizing those countries,' Rodriguez said — allegations the Reuters report presented as his claims.

The vote is on a non-binding resolution that has passed in favour of Cuba in the UN General Assembly by wide margins every year since 1992, Reuters reported. The UN vote to condemn the US embargo is expected to take place on October 27-28, officials said, and the United States has imposed a trade embargo on Cuba for more than 60 years.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations, Reuters reported. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz earlier this week called on countries to vote against the resolution supporting Cuba, calling it 'an excuse to justify oppression, to justify the misery of the Cuban people,' Reuters reported. The Trump administration has ramped up pressure on Cuba since January, imposing a fuel blockade on the island and stiff sanctions against a swath of Cuban officials and state entities, Reuters reported in the same dispatch.