Republicans livid over Cuba talks, call it appeasement

Republicans livid over Cuba talks, call it appeasement
By KATIE GLUECK and SEUNG MIN KIM 12/17/14 11:07 AM EST Updated 12/18/14
2:29 AM EST

Leading Republicans reacted with outrage Wednesday over the Obama
administration's move to normalize relations with Cuba, with some
casting it as appeasement and the product of blackmail by the communist
Castro government.

Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a likely 2016
presidential contender, was perhaps the most ardent voice to denounce
the administration, and one of several Florida Republicans to do so. He
and others in the GOP promised to try to derail the White House's
efforts, even as at least one Republican-leaning group, the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, welcomed the news of improved ties with Cuba.

"It's part of a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants that this
administration has established," Rubio said on Fox News, one of multiple
media appearances he made Wednesday. He insisted that the White House's
plans, which include opening an embassy in Havana, won't result in more
economic freedom or democracy in Cuba, a country that survived decades
under a U.S. embargo.

"This notion that somehow being able to travel more to Cuba, to sell
more consumer products, the idea that's going to lead to some democratic
opening is absurd," Rubio said. "But it's par for the course with this
administration constantly giving away unilateral concessions … in
exchange for nothing."

Rubio had mixed feelings on news that Alan Gross, an American held in
Cuba for five years, was being released as part of an agreement with
Havana that included the freeing of three Cubans who had been jailed in
the U.S.

The senator said he was happy Gross was free, but worried that the deal
"puts a price on every American abroad." "Governments now know if they
can take an American hostage, they get very significant concessions,"
Rubio said.

Rubio is set to play a major role in Cuba policy next year as the
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western
Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs.

He pointed to some of Congress's leverage points, such as its say in
funding for embassies and the nomination of a U.S. ambassador to Cuba,
as means of stopping the White House's moves. And in a press conference
on Wednesday, Rubio also threw cold water on the prospects of the new
Republican-led Congress next year formally lifting the Cuban embargo,
saying flatly: "This Congress is not going to lift the embargo."

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who announced this week that he is
seriously exploring a 2016 run, weighed in later Wednesday, calling the
plans for Cuba "the latest foreign policy misstep" by President Barack
Obama and "another dramatic overreach of his executive authority."

"It undermines America's credibility and undermines the quest for a free
and democratic Cuba," he said in a statement that also welcomed Gross'
release.

The state's current governor, Rick Scott, also blasted the Obama
administration: "As long as Cuba chooses dictatorship over democracy, I
will continue to support the embargo and sanctions against them," he
said in a statement.

Florida GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who, like Rubio, is also
Cuban-American, said he welcomed Gross's release even as he blasted
Obama as the "Appeaser-in-Chief." "President Obama's decision to allow
the Castro regime to blackmail the United States and abandon our
pro-democracy principles is an outrage," he said in a statement.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is expected to chair a
powerful Senate panel next year that oversees funding for the State
Department and other foreign operations, tweeted that the development is
"an incredibly bad idea." The Republican added later: "I will do all in
my power to block the use of funds to open an embassy in Cuba.
Normalizing relations with Cuba is bad idea at a bad time."

But incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, a Republican
from Tennessee, was more measured, saying in a statement that he heard
the news Wednesday morning and that "as of now there is no real
understanding as to what changes the Cuban government is prepared to make."

And Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who flew to Cuba to help
bring Gross back, warned against rushing to stop the White House's moves.

"I think that would be really counterproductive to block funding for an
embassy," Flake told reporters at the Capitol, adding: "For those who
say this is a concession somehow to the Cuban regime … I think that that
is a wrong way to look at it. That is simply wrong. The policy that
we've had in place for the past 50 years has done more in my view …. to
keep the Castro regimes in power than anything we could've done."

The Chamber's support of the Obama administration's actions also was
evidence of fissures within the GOP over Cuba.

"The U.S. business community welcomes today's announcement, and has long
supported many of the economic provisions the president touched on in
his remarks," Chamber President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a
statement.

"We deeply believe that an open dialogue and commercial exchange between
the U.S. and Cuban private sectors will bring shared benefits, and the
steps announced today will go a long way in allowing opportunities for
free enterprise to flourish."

Jonathan Topaz contributed to this report.

Source: Republicans livid over Cuba talks, call it appeasement - Katie
Glueck and Seung Min Kim - POLITICO -
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/marco-rubio-says-cuba-talks-are-absurd-113639.html