Waltz clashes with Cuba foreign minister on the General Assembly floor, and a Cuban diplomat who shoved an American is expelled

The annual fight over the Cuba embargo stopped being a debate on Tuesday and became a shouting match at the podium, and by nightfall one Cuban diplomat had been ordered out of the country.

Waltz had begun his speech against the resolution, criticizing corruption and repression by Cuba communist government, when Rodriguez walked toward the podium calling him a liar and demanding a point of order. Members of the Cuban delegation banged on their desks. Waltz answered in kind. This is the UN, not your communist dictatorship. You cannot silence me, he said, and told Rodriguez that this is not Havana and to step aside. Assembly President Khalilur Rahman struck his gavel and suspended the meeting. Waltz later finished his remarks and urged the assembly to reject the resolution, which Cuba has brought every year since 1992 and which is set for a vote on Wednesday. Last year it passed 165 to 7, with 12 abstentions. The resolutions carry no legal force.

The expulsion came out of what happened at the edge of the scene. Waltz said a Cuban official shoved and tried to assault an American diplomat, J.P. Freire, who was filming the confrontation on his phone. Video Waltz shared shows the official grabbing at the phone and pushing it away while accusing Freire of violating his personal space. Cuban media identified the official as Richard Tur de la Concepcion, first secretary of Cuba permanent mission to the UN. Waltz told Fox News Hannity program that Rubio had signed the paperwork to eject him. He is gone. He is going to be on a plane to Havana within the next 24 hours, Waltz said. You lay a hand on an American here in the United States, President Trump, Secretary Rubio, and myself, we are not going to stand for it.

The White House backed its ambassador in public. Its account on X shared Waltz message with the words Not in the United States of America. Waltz wrote that regime thugs rushed the stage to interrupt his speech and that the Castro regime has profited at the expense of the Cuban people.

The clash sits inside a wider pressure campaign. The administration has raised the threat of military intervention, and President Trump said last week that American warships could stop in Cuba on their way back from the Iran war. In January he signed an order imposing tariffs on countries that supply oil to the island, and Cuba reported a nationwide blackout in March after fuel stopped arriving for three months. Washington has lobbied member states to vote against this year resolution or abstain. Wednesday vote will show whether that lobbying moved anyone. Tuesday scene already showed what the campaign looks like at close range.