WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), along with U.S. Representatives Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Mark Green (R-Tenn.), María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), and Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.), in a joint statement on the Biden Administration's recent announcement providing concessions to the brutal Cuban dictatorship.
“During Cuba’s historic anti-regime protests last year, President Biden said ‘[t]he United States stands with the brave Cubans who have taken to the streets to oppose 62 years of repression under a communist regime.’ Yet today, while hundreds of activists remain unlawfully imprisoned, the White House is resurrecting President Obama’s failed policy of unilateral concessions to the Castro/Díaz-Canel criminal dictatorship,” the lawmakers said. “Rather than supporting their pleas for freedom by expanding democracy programming, broadcasting, global diplomacy, and sanctions against their oppressors, the Biden White House is rewarding the Western Hemisphere’s longest ruling communist dictatorship with high level talks, easing sanctions, increased travel, and access to U.S. financial institutions. Appeasing Cuba’s murderous regime does not comply with the statutory requirements in U.S. law and undercuts America’s support for Cuba’s democratic opposition.”
“The Biden Administration’s repeated appeasement to the Cuban dictatorship is a betrayal of America’s commitment to human rights and freedom, and to the longsuffering Cuban people who are struggling for a genuine democratic transition,” the lawmakers concluded.
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