The US Embargo on Cuba

Every year the UN General Assembly votes on a resolution calling on the United States to end its embargo on Cuba, and in October 2026 Cuba accused Washington of pressuring countries ahead of the vote. This film explains the fundamentals: Cuba's ties to the United States before 1959, the revolution and the nationalisations, the export ban of 1960 and Kennedy's full embargo of 1962, what an embargo is, Soviet support and the crisis after 1991, the laws of 1992, 1996 and 2000 that wrote the embargo into US law, the thaw of 2014 to 2016 and the tightening since, each government's account in its own terms, the UN votes since 1992, and what it would take to lift the embargo.

The US embargo on Cuba

Sixty years of closed trade, voted on every year.

Next door

An island in America’s shadow.

The break

Seizures, quotas and a ban.

What an embargo does

Closing the nearest market.

Moscow’s island

A lifeline across the Atlantic.

Written into law

Congress takes the wheel.

Thaw and freeze

Embassies open, the law stays.

Two accounts, one vote

Each government, in its own words.

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