Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Defends Embargo on Cuba

With reports out that President Barack Obama is encouraging business leaders to urge Congress to back lifting the embargo on Cuba, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., doubled down on her support of the embargo on Wednesday.

"Given President Obama's call to lift the embargo at his 2015 State of the Union speech, it is unsurprising that he is encouraging business leaders to advance a political agenda that benefits the Castro regime and not the people of Cuba,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “The president must stop listening to the advice from the Castro brothers and instead hear the pleas from the suffering people who are living under this brutal dictatorship. The lifting of the embargo is predicated on simple conditions, including free and fair elections and the release of all political prisoners. These are conditions President Obama should be working to achieve, not evade.”