Opposing Rapprochement With Cuba

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeSANTIS. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to recognize my colleague from Florida because she is just not only on the House floor fighting for freedom for the Cuban people, with whom she obviously has ancestral relations, she fights for freedom for everybody. Whether it is in Venezuela or Iran, she is there; you can set your clock to it.

When I first heard about these concessions, I was really scratching my head. I texted some of my colleagues, and I was like: ``We are not really getting anything for this.''

Sure enough, Raul Castro goes out, talks to the people, and says: ``We are not changing. We are not changing anything.'' They are staying exactly with the values that they have been with from the beginning, which are antagonistic to freedom, antagonistic to everything we hold dear in the United States.

You know, when you look at countries like Cuba, a lot of times you don't even need to get into the nitty-gritty. There are just certain signs where you know the nature of the regime. For example, when you look at communism in Eastern Europe, you don't have to look at the daily life or any of that. You just look at the fact that there was a Berlin Wall that kept people in like caged animals. If you look at the differences between North and South Korea, all you have to do is look at that satellite photo at night, where South Korea is lit up like a Christmas tree and North Korea is a land of darkness and despair.

For me, when I think of what is the nature of the Cuban regime, I think all you need to know is that you have tens of thousands of people living in Cuba. It is a nice island, it has great weather, and they are suffocated so much that they are willing to swim across 90 miles of shark-infested waters--the Florida Straits--knowing that they are probably going to die. That is all you need to know.

This is a Stalinist regime. And as my colleague from Alabama mentioned, the Cuban missile crisis wasn't even just that there were nuclear weapons in Cuba pointed at the United States. Fidel Castro was telling Khrushchev to fire them into the United States. We actually were fortunate that Nikita Khrushchev was actually the cooler head in that. So if Castro had his way, there would have been nuclear weapons sent here. And so this is the nature of the regime.

So what are you doing with this policy? To me, I look at it very simply. I think this fact is true. Every single dollar spent in Cuba benefits the Castro regime. Every single dollar. Europe doesn't have restrictions. Most of the other world doesn't have restrictions. Have the Cuban people benefited from that? Has their standard of living gone up? No. This all goes to benefit the government.

To me, this is the worst possible time to throw the Castro regime a lifeline. If you look at what is happening in Caracas, if you look at what is happening in Moscow, these regimes are buckling because of the decline in the price of oil.

So this is a moment of profound weakness for the Castro regime. And giving them these concessions is exactly what the Castro regime wants. I am scratching my head trying to figure out: What do we get in return for this?

The Americans who had property seized when Castro took power, are any of them getting their property back? No.

What about the Cuban Americans who had to flee? They had their businesses taken, property taken. Are any of them going to get any type of recompense? Of course, not.

What about freedom of speech, political rights, the ability to participate in political life and criticize those in power? Is that being extended to the Cuban people? Not on your life. Nothing.

I will say, it is interesting--and my colleague from Florida mentioned this--the dismal credit rating that Cuba has. They don't pay back any loans. Are we then going to extend Export-Import Bank loans that are backed by the taxpayer to do business in Cuba? The American taxpayer is going to have to end up paying for that. That is not a good source of business for our taxpayers.

The tragedy of this is we have given away leverage that could have come in handy. These Castro brothers are on their last legs. When they finally leave the scene, we want to use the leverage we have to leverage a democratic transition. Instead, we are essentially normalizing status quo. So if the Stalinist dictatorship survives beyond the Castros due to U.S. support, you are going to have 11 million Cubans who are consigned to another generation of tyranny.

I will just say one more thing. When I read the media coverage--and I think I can say this because I am not from south Florida--the coverage is so negative about Cuban Americans who fled Castro. They say: Oh, they're living in the past. This is anachronistic, all this stuff.

For me, the people that I want to talk to to know the true nature of the regime are the people who suffered under the regime, the people who were forced to flee and who had family members killed, had family members in prison. That, to me, is the number one source of information that I would look to.

And so the media frames it as if somehow the American policy is anachronistic. I think it is the Castro regime, based on Stalinist principles, that is anachronistic, and yet it continues to lumber on. And the tragedy of this is that we are giving them a critical lifeline so that they can continue having their country governed like a political prison.

So I appreciate you organizing this, my colleague in Florida. We are giving speeches here tonight, but we need to act in this body, and we need to show that this policy does not represent the will of the American people and does not represent what is best for people in Cuba that are struggling for freedom.

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