Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Hits Obama for Easing Travel, Trade Restrictions on Cuba

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., ripped into President Barack Obama’s handling of Cuba on Friday even as that nation is in the global spotlight as Pope Francis visits it. 

Ros-Lehtinen took aim at Obama offering new regulations lowering travel and trade restrictions on Cuba. 

“The Obama administration continues to naively fuel expectations of a non-existent new Cuba,” Ros-Lehtinen said on Friday. “The mislabeled private sector in Cuba is part of a police state that is under military control and maintaining its closed economy is the only way the regime will survive. These new regulations are another desperate attempt to ignore the iron grip that the Castro regime maintains on the island’s economy and will only serve to benefit the coffers of the regime. By repeating the lie that Cuba has a private sector, the administration is using U.S. regulations to advance the regime's political agenda in the United States. 

“Going to Cuba for any economic transaction is risky business because the Castro regime has proven time and time again that it will not pay its bills or its creditors and will continue to ignore U.S. certified claim holders,” Ros-Lehtinen added. “The sad reality is that the Castro regime is taking full advantage of the Obama administration’s willingness to concede on loosening the regulations while expecting nothing in return from the communist dictatorship. Our regulations do not have to change, it is Cuba that needs to change and the Castro brothers will not let that happen.”