Castro’s new Gitmo demands stir fierce debate

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and outspoken Cuban-American opponent of normalizing relations with Cuba, said Castro’s new insistence that America hand over Gitmo and lift the trade embargo entirely come as no surprise.

“Castro’s move was eminently predictable and was a natural fallout from Obama’s disastrous Cuba policy,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday. “With regard to Cuba, Obama has continued his pattern of weakness and appeasement that began with Russia, that extended to Iran, that extended to Cuba.”

As part of the negotiations leading up to Obama’s Dec. 17 announcement taking steps to normalize relations with Cuba, Castro has laid out a set of longstanding demands that include an end to U.S. support for Cuban dissidents and Cuba’s removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Castro added more demands during a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States on Wednesday, saying that while diplomatic ties will likely be re-established, achieving normal relations with the U.S. will depend on a series of concessions, including returning Gitmo, lifting the trade embargo entirely and paying billions in compensation to the Castro regime for damage the decades-long sanctions and embargo caused.

Already this month, the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments moved to lift many sanctions on trade and U.S. business development in Cuba, as well as several travel restrictions.

Obama, Cruz argued, gave the Castros, to whom he referred as “vicious dictators,” “everything [they] wanted in exchange for very little, and of course the response from the communist dictator Raul Castro is to say we want more.”

Cruz also suggested that Obama and Castro are likely on the same page when it comes to returning Guantanamo Bay to the Cuban government so he can finally fulfill his longtime campaign promise to shutter the island detention facility without Congress’ consent.

“Sadly, the demands of Castro are in many ways consistent with where President Obama wants to go anyway,” Cruz said.

But the White House on Thursday signaled that the new demands demonstrate serious differences and that the two sides still have a long way to go to normalize relations, even though re-establishing diplomatic ties is more immediate.

“It’s clear that there are a wide variety of disagreements between the United States and Cuba, and more directly, between the U.S. government and our values and the Cuban government and the values they so often fail to codify,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reportersThursday.

Earnest also unequivocally said the Obama wants to retain the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay for national security purposes after he shutters the prison there.

“He wants to hang on to Guantanamo even after he empties the prison,” he said.

Asked later whether he would shutter the Gitmo facility through a unilateral, executive action, Earnest said he didn’t have anything to preview to reporters and suggested that more work needs to be done in Congress in order to fulfill that difficult goal.

Republicans who support lifting travel restrictions and allowing free trade between the U.S. and Cuba say they don’t believe that Obama is trying to slyly hand Gitmo back to the Cuban government, which would be a non-starter in the GOP-controlled Congress.

“It’s a non-starter anywhere,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who earlier in the day dropped a bill to further lift travel restrictions on Americans visiting their Cuban neighbor. It was co-sponsored by GOP Sens. John Boozman of Arkansas and Jerry Moran of Kansas, as well as Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Tom Udall of New Mexico.

Raul Castro has “said a lot of things,” Flake said. “I pay attention to the negotiations more than the bluster coming from the Cuban government.”

Flake said he’s heard “speculation” that Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba is at least in part motivated by an overarching goal to empty Gitmo and close the prison.

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” he told the Washington Examiner, adding that he also doesn’t believe Obama is poised to unilaterally change the decades-long agreement granting the U.S. rights to the base.

Flake also denied that his new bill lifting more travel restrictions sent the wrong signal one day after Castro made the Gitmo demands. Castro also declared that the U.S. needs to pay Cuba for billions in economic damage its trade embargo and sanctions have caused his government.

“Our bill is not a concession — this is the first get-tough policy we’ve had in a long time actually allowing Americans to travel,” he said. “I think our actions stand a better chance of trying to bring about the kind of change that we want in Cuba.”

“There’s no way that people can travel there without some money ending up in government coffers [in the form of travel taxes], but there’s no way that somebody could travel there without benefiting some Cuban entrepreneur or those seeking to make a better life for themselves,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a prominent member of both the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, said Castro’s demands regarding a Gitmo handover “is an irrelevant thing for us.”

“Guantanamo is a discussion between the administration and Congress about what to do with the remaining prisoners there,” he said.

Kaine also dismissed speculation that Obama’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba has anything to do with his desire to close Gitmo.

“I don’t understand that thinking,” he said. “President Obama is engaging with Cuba because that’s what we do with nations. We have normalized diplomatic relations with countries that have human rights records as bad or worse than Cuba … and we have found that a better lever to push humans rights.”

But staunch opponents of the U.S. re-engaging with the Castro regime are surprised by Thursday’s bipartisan show of support in the Senate for lifting even more travel restrictions than the Obama administration has so far.

“I guess Cuba does not need to hire any lobbyists to secure a voice in the U.S. Congress,” said Jason Poblete, an attorney specializing in trade policy and former GOP Hill staffer who has followed U.S.-Cuba policy for years. “If only they were as eager to defend human rights or help U.S. taxpayers that are owed at least $6 billion in certified claims for the unlawful taking of real property and unpaid obligations.”

Poblete was referring to U.S. court rulings holding the Castro regime responsible for compensating Americans for property the Cuban government seized decades ago.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentifed which state John Boozman represents. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.