Marco Rubio Calls US Policy In Venezuela ‘Shameful,’ Plans To Propose Sanctions

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday evening that he would push for Congress to pass sanctions against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and called it “shameful” that the United States had taken stronger action against Maduro’s government for what he described as “atrocities” against opposition demonstrators. Rubio’s speech came on the heels of another by Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, who praised the health care system in Cuba, to which he had made a recent visit, in arguing that the US embargo on the island’s economy should be lifted.

Rubio, the Miami-born son of Cuban immigrants, dedicated several minutes to criticizing Harkin’s comments before going on to link the Cuban government’s “repression” to violence in Venezuela against opposition protestors. “Let me tell you what the Cubans are really good at … what they are really good at is repression,” he said. “What they are really good at is shutting off information to the internet, and to the radio and television, and social media … They’re not just good at it domestically. They’re good exporters of these things.”

Rubio showed slides of opposition protestors, including former mayor Leopoldo Lopez, who remains in detention after being accused of arson and conspiracy against the government, and Génesis Carmona, a 21-year-old former beauty queen who was shot to death during a protest two weeks ago. Maduro’s government, he said, were “puppets of Havana, completely infiltrated by..foreign military officials” from Cuba. Rubio acknowledged Harkin’s citing of a recent poll showing that a majority of Americans -- even in Florida, where the large Cuban-American community has long opposed lifting the embargo against the Castro-run government -- favor steps toward normalization with Cuba, saying, “So do I – a democratic and free Cuba.”

“But you want us to reach out and develop friendly relationships with a serial violator of human rights, who supports what’s going on in Venezuela and every other atrocity on the planet?” he said. “On issue after issue, they are always on the side of the tyrants. Look it up.“And this is who we should be opening up to? Why don’t they change? Why doesn’t the Cuban government change? Why doesn’t the Venezuelan government change?”