Cuba’s foreign minister has condemned what he called “falsehoods” by US President Donald Trump, who told the UN General Assembly that the island “will fall”.

Cuban delegates left the chamber during Trump’s speech in New York on Tuesday, as tensions between Washington and Havana remain high.

US imposed an energy blockade on Cuba in January and has since introduced additional measures, while Trump has also openly discussed taking control of the island.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez defended his country’s sovereignty after Trump said Cuba “will fall”, without explaining how.

“The US government is incapable of accepting that Cuba is and has the right to be a full sovereign and independent country,” Rodriguez wrote on X, adding that “none of the falsehoods by the US President at the UN can deny that fact”.

“We are a country of peace and we deserve peace,” said Rodriguez, who is leading the Cuban delegation in New York.

‘Bellicose rhetoric’

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel also condemned Trump’s remarks.

“Unable to justify the punishment against the people of Cuba and their genocidal economic war, the President of the United States repeats at the UN that Cuba represents a threat,” he wrote on X.

“The lie is the resource of those who refuse to accept the right to self-determination of the Cuban people,” Diaz-Canel said.

Trump has described Cuba, located about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Florida, as an “extraordinary threat” to US national security.