The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution deploring the American trade embargo on Cuba by a vote of 191-2, leaving the US alone with Israel as the lone holdouts.

The resolution stresses the "necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed" by the United States against Cuba.  It encouraged all UN Member States to ignore the US on this matter and honor their obligations under the UN Charter and international law, which reaffirm freedom of trade and navigation.

Back in 2014, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced the thaw in bilateral relations.  Last year, the Obama administration broke with long-standing US acrimony and abstained instead of directly opposing the resolution.  That abstention didn't mean that the US approved of Cuba's government - just a recognition that the blockade clearly hadn't achieved any of its goals after five and a half decades.

What a difference a year makes.  "The United States does not fear isolation in this chamber or anywhere else," said Trump's envoy to the UN Nikki Haley, evoking anachronistic Cold War sloganeering and announcing the "continued solidarity with the Cuban people and in the hope that they will one day be free to choose their own destiny." 

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez belittled the Trump administration's 180 degree reversal as a "return to the past."

"President Trump does not have the least morale authority to question Cuba," said Rodriguez.  "He is heading a government of millionaires aiming to implement savage measures against low-income families, against the poor people in this country, minorities and immigrants."

"He is pursuing a program that encourages hatred and division."