Shortly after the news broke, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) had some tough words for the president about his unilateral action to relax diplomatic relations with Cuba.
“No commitment was made to allowing the establishment of political parties or to even begin the semblance of a transition to democracy,” he said about the announcement. “In exchange for all of these concessions, the only thing the Cuban government agreed to do is free 53 political prisoners – who could wind up in jail tomorrow morning if they once again take up the cause of freedom – and to allow the United Nations and the Red Cross to monitor conditions on the island.”
“This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie,” he continued. “The lie and the illusion that more commerce and access to money and goods will translate to political freedom for the Cuban people. All this is going to do is give the Castro regime – which controls every aspect of Cuban life – the opportunity to manipulate these changes to perpetuate its sovereign power.”
He also argued this unilateral approach is a kind of capitulation to human rights abusers, a lopsided bargain that will ultimately make it harder to topple the regime.
“These changes will lead to legitimacy for a government that shamelessly, continuously abuses human rights,” he said. “But it will not lead to assistance for those whose rights are being abused. It is just another concession to a tyranny – by the Obama administration – rather than a defense of every universal and inalienable right that our country was founded on and stands for. In short, what these changes are going to do is they will tighten this regime’s grip on power for decades to come.”
Sen. Rubio, however, acknowledged he was “overjoyed” Alan Gross was a free man and back in United States safely after five years in captivity. Nonetheless, he called the new policy “willfully ignorant.”
“This president is the single worst negotiator we’ve had in the White House in my lifetime,” he said. “[H]e has basically given the Cuban government everything it asked for and received no assurances of any advances in democracy and freedom in return."
"Today by conceding to the oppressors, this president and this administration have let the people of Cuba down,” he added.