Cuban-American Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reacted loudly Wednesday to President Obama’s plans to ease relations with Cuba, the two senators arguing that the planned move would only hurt the people trapped in Fidel and Raul Castro’s communist island fortress in the Caribbean.
Rubio wasted no time embarking on an all-out media blitz against the president’s plans, releasing a statement and holding a press conference on the issue, then giving interviews to multiple news groups, including CNN, ABC News, Fox News, CNBC and the Fox Business Network.
“The president’s decision to reward the Castro regime and begin the path toward the normalization of relations with Cuba is inexplicable,” Rubio said.
“Cuba, like Syria, Iran and Sudan, remains a state sponsor of terrorism … Appeasing the Castro brothers will only cause other tyrants from Caracas to Tehran to Pyongyang to see that they can take advantage of President Obama’s naiveté during his final two years in office. As a result, America will be less safe as a result of the president’s change in policy,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, Menendez, who currently chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released his own statement, saying “it invites dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as bargaining chips. I fear that today’s actions will put at risk the thousands of Americans that work overseas to support civil society, advocate for access to information, provide humanitarian services, and promote democratic reforms.”
The New Jersey Democrat added in a second statement: “Today’s policy announcement is misguided and fails to understand the nature of the regime in Cuba that has exerted its authoritarian control over the Cuban people for 55 years. No one wishes that the reality in Cuba was more different than the Cuban people and Cuban-Americans that have fled the island in search of freedom.”
The White House also announced Wednesday that it would release three Cubans held on terrorism charges in return for imprisoned American Alan Gross, lift travel restrictions and that it would establish a U.S. embassy in Havana.
Hours after Obama explained at a press conference his plans to “normalize relations” with the Castro regime, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, weighed in on the issue, making him the last of the three senators claiming Cuban heritage to do so.
“The President spoke today about a new era for relations between American and the Cuban people, but these circumstances do not bode well for either. We have seen how previous Obama administration attempts at rapprochement with rogue regimes like Russia and Iran have worked out, with our influence diminished and our enemies emboldened,” Cruz said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“Now they are revisiting this same disastrous policy with the Castros, blind to the fact that they are being played by brutal dictators whose only goal is maintaining power. And if history be our guide, the Castros will exploit that power to undermine America and oppress the Cuban people. First Russia, then Iran, now Cuba – this is one more very, very bad deal brokered by the Obama Administration,” he said.
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This post has been updated to include comment from Ted Cruz.
