Weak “Engagement” With Cuba Will End in Misery
By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and U.S. Representative Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL)
Last month, regime thugs savagely beat pro-democracy activist José Daniel Ferrer at a state prison in Santiago de Cuba. His wife and two children were forced to watch. And when Ferrer’s young daughter tried to protect her father, the officials brutalized her, too. This is not an isolated incident. For years, Ferrer has been on the receiving end of cruel and unjust treatment simply for speaking out against the Cuban regime. Tragically, there is no end in sight for him, his family, or the more than 1,000 Cubans jailed and tortured for using their voices.
These are not the actions of a government seeking greater openness and good-faith engagement. These are the actions of criminals interested purely in self-preservation, who routinely use force to oppress, intimidate, and silence anyone who dares to challenge their illegitimate rule. And yet, there are men and women in the Biden Administration who foolishly advocate for weaker sanctions and greater “engagement” with the dictatorship.
In the wake of a “law enforcement dialogue” between the U.S. Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security and the Cuban regime, it appears Obama-era holdovers in this White House are doing everything in their power to reverse common-sense Trump-era policies, with the goal of lifting sanctions and removing Cuba from America’s state sponsors of terror list — a boon for the regime that shows these socialist-leaning ideologues learned nothing from their past mistakes.
When President Obama attempted his appeasement of the Cuban regime, the result by any objective standard was total failure. If anything, the oppression appeared to get worse during Obama’s presidency. Political prisoners released as part of the deal were rearrested in the succeeding months. Meanwhile, any profits from increased trade and travel went only to the Communist Party elite and the Cuban military, not the Cuban people.
None of this came as a surprise to those of us who are familiar with the Castro brothers and their puppet successor, Díaz-Canel. We know from experience that they use every gesture of international goodwill as an opportunity to strengthen their grip on power. That is why activist Jorge Luis Garcia Perez called Obama’s actions a “betrayal of the aspiration to freedom of the Cuban people.”
So why do Biden Administration officials insist on doing this all over again? It’s for the same reason that they want to normalize relations with Venezuela’s narco-dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and play nice with the Chinese Communist Party. Rooted in globalist economic theory and blinded by Marxist sympathies, they believe that “engagement” with dictators and the opening of markets will lead to universal liberty and prosperity.
History says otherwise. If we put appeasement into practice with Cuba, we will lose the leverage we need to prevent greater oppression of Ferrer, the Ladies in White, the San Isidro movement, and other anti-regime voices. We cannot forget that we are dealing with criminals who use illegal immigration as a weapon against the U.S., support international narco-terrorists like the ELN and the FARC, and remain a staunch ally of America’s greatest adversaries — from Nicaragua and the Maduro regime to Iran, North Korea, Putin’s Russia, and Communist China.
President Biden must not lift sanctions on Cuba’s dictatorship or remove it from the state sponsors of terror list. There are real ways the U.S. can help the Cuban people, such as providing them with uncensored internet access and American broadcasting; sanctioning human rights abusers, including the Cuban military; and advocating on behalf of the hundreds of political prisoners unjustly detained after the mass protests on July 11, 2021. The path of “engagement,” on the other hand, will help neither the Cuban people nor America. To the contrary, appeasing the Cuban dictatorship will only embolden and enrich the oppressors.
