Florida Sen. Marco Rubio delivered a searing indictment of President Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Cuba and Iran Friday while pledging to invite dissidents from both countries to his inaugural address if he’s elected president.
Rubio’s remarks at the New York-based Foreign Policy Initiative came just hours before Secretary of State John Kerry raised the American flag at the newly-reopened U.S. embassy in Havana. The Republican presidential hopeful criticized the administration’s rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba, saying it represents the “convergence of nearly every flawed strategic, moral and economic notion that has driven President Obama’s foreign policy.”
“The world has missed having an American president who speaks honestly about the world in which we live,” Rubio said. “In the eyes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Cuban people are suffering because not enough American tourists visit the country, when the truth is the Cuban people are suffering because they live in a tyrannical dictatorship.”
As the son of two Cuban immigrants, Rubio has been a major critic of the administration’s outreach to Cuba. On Friday, he described the Castro regime as “anti-American leaders who continue to work with nations like Russia and China to spy on our people and government; who harbor fugitives from American justice; and who stand in opposition to nearly every value our nation holds dear by violating the basic human rights of their own people, preventing democratic elections and depriving their nation’s economy of freedom and opportunity.”
“[President Obama] has ensured the regime will receive international legitimacy and a substantial economic boost to benefit its repression of the Cuban people, which has only increased since the new policy was announced,” he said.
If elected president, the Florida Republican said he would “stand on the side of freedom” by recognizing individuals who have fought against the “tyrannical dictatorship” in Cuba and other oppressive regimes.
“I will make this pledge here and now: As president, as a symbol of solidarity between my administration and those who strive for freedom around the world, I will invite Cuban dissidents, Iranian dissidents, Chinese dissidents and freedom fighters from around the world to be honored guests at my inauguration,” he said.
Following his inauguration, Rubio says we would give the Castros an ultimatum in his first day in office: “continue repressing your people and lose the diplomatic relations and benefits provided by President Obama, or carry out meaningful political and human rights reforms and receive increased U.S. trade, investment and support.”
“We must guarantee that the United States stands on the side of the Cuban people, not their oppressors,” he said, describing the task as “straightforward, but not easy.”
Democratic front-runner HIllary Clinton has previously accused both Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush of approaching the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba “through a Cold War prism.”
“They have it backwards,” the former secretary of state reportedly said during a campaign speech in late July. “An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession; it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back freedom; it advances freedom.”
A recent survey by InterAmerican Security Watch found that when Americans were informed of Cuba’s history of human rights abuses and dealings with Russia and North Korea, they were dramatically more likely to oppose normalizing relations with the Latin American country.
Roughly 65 percent of respondents said sanctions against Cuba should be kept in place “pending progress on human rights and elections” and 68 percent said the country should remain on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
