Just before the American flag will rise for the first time in more than 50 years at the newly reopened U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba on Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) blasted the current administration for expanding trade and travel with the former cold war nemesis.
“In the eyes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the Cuban people are suffering because not enough American tourists visit the country,” the Cuban-American presidential hopeful said in a speech in New York City, “when the truth is the Cuban people are suffering because they live in a tyrannical dictatorship.”
Rubio also asserted, in an attack on the Castro government, that “the Cuban people have a standard of living well below that of virtually every other nation in the hemisphere.” Yet the U.N.’s Human Development Index ranks Cuba above all of its Caribbean neighbors, above Mexico, above all of Central America and above much of South America.
Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. and about an equal life expectancy. The country also has the lowest HIV rate in the Americas, according to the United Nations, and just this summer became the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mothers to children.
Rubio is correct, however, that human rights problems continue on the island. Earlier this month, a Reuters investigation found the State Department may have edited a report on human trafficking in Cuba to falsely make it appear that the country was making significant improvements. Obama administration officials allegedly doctored the forced labor and trafficking reports on at least 14 “strategically important” countries, including Malaysia, Cuba, China, India, Uzbekistan, and Mexico.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who flew to Havana for the embassy opening, denied the allegations, telling Telemundo the Cuba upgrade was “based on the merits of what Cuba has done and engaged in with respect to counter-trafficking efforts. Every judgment is based on the record. I make the final decision. I had no discussion outside of this building with the White House or any other entity about whether or not this should happen.”
Rubio has made his opposition to normalization with Cuba a central part of his presidential platform and vowed on Friday to abolish diplomatic relations with the country if elected, put it back on the state sponsors of terror list, and “provide support to Cuba’s pro-democracy movement” — though he did not detail what that support would look like. Many of his fellow Republicans in the 2016 race have staked out similar positions. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush released a statement Friday saying: “If I am elected President, I will reverse Obama’s strategy of accommodation and appeasement.”
Those who are sitting members of Congress, including Rubio, Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), have also said they will do whatever they can to block an ambassador from being confirmed.
Yet these positions are increasingly out of line with the electorate. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly three-quarters of Americans support re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, a 10 point increase since January. Notably, more than half of Republicans — 56 percent — now support the renewed ties with the island nation. Another poll conducted by Univision found that even Cuban-Americans, a group once known for their hard line on the Castro regime, are for the restored relationship and want the next president to continue on this path.
When the Cuban embassy opened in Washington, D.C. in July, several Republicans and Democrats attended the ceremony, and called on Rubio and his allies to “stop living in the past.” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who has introduced bills in Congress to end the embargo and open up free travel between the U.S. and Cuba, told ThinkProgress: “They’re living 54 years ago and they need to get with the program. This is 2015. The public needs to reach out to these Congress members and say, ‘Get with it. Sign off on these bills.’”