[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 186 (Wednesday, November 20, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6707]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  CUBA

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, since the onset of the Trump Presidency, 
the White House has issued a steady stream of executive orders to 
reverse the policy of engagement with Cuba begun by President Obama. 
Those decisions have largely curtailed travel by law-abiding Americans 
to Cuba who seek to participate in people-to-people exchanges, 
patronize Cuban private businesses, and otherwise experience Cuban 
culture.
  Cuba is the only country in the world to which Americans cannot 
travel freely, other than North Korea, because President Trump 
apparently believes it is his sole prerogative to tell Americans where 
they can travel and spend their own money.
  I have spoken about the need for engagement with Cuba many times. It 
is in our national interest because our past policy of unilateral 
sanctions and isolation--enforced for more than half a century--failed 
to achieve any of its objectives and because engagement with the people 
of other countries is the way we promote our values and protect our 
interests.
  This is especially true when the foreign government is one with which 
we have profound disagreements, like Russia, China, Egypt, Turkey; it 
is a long list. But no one is proposing that we prevent Americans from 
traveling to those countries, and if they did, it would be strongly 
opposed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
  Today, our Embassy in Havana is operating on a shoestring. Whereas 
there used to be more than 50 direct hire staff, today there are fewer 
than 18. The Cuban Embassy in Washington has also been reduced to a 
shell of what it used to be. As a result, the ability of both 
governments to process visas and conduct diplomacy is at a virtual 
standstill.
  Cubans who seek visas to travel to the U.S. today to participate in 
educational programs, cultural, entrepreneurial, or scientific 
exchanges have to travel to Trinidad, Mexico, or some other country to 
apply at our embassies there. The cost to do so far exceeds what the 
vast majority of Cubans can afford, so travel by Cubans to the U.S. has 
been reduced to a trickle compared to what it was before.
  The White House has curtailed most air and sea travel to Cuba, so 
travel by Americans has also plummeted. This has wreaked havoc on 
fledgling Cuban private businesses, which depend on American customers. 
The administration seems utterly unconcerned, focused instead on 
punishing the Cuban Government for its support of Nicolas Maduro in 
Venezuela. This is nothing new to the Cuban authorities, and it 
empowers hardliners in the Cuban Government who opposed engagement with 
the United States in the first place and who are more comfortable 
building alliances with counterparts in Russia, China, and North Korea 
with whom they share a common ideology and disdain for the United 
States.
  I recognize that the Trump administration has no reluctance to hold 
Cuba to a standard that it does not hold for other authoritarian 
regimes. In fact, if President Trump were consistent he would be 
praising his Cuban counterpart as a friend or great leader, the way he 
praises Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping, Abdel Fattah al Sisi, Rodrigo Duterte, 
Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and other autocrats.
  But despite this hypocrisy, why don't we at least increase the number 
of consular officers at our embassies so Americans and Cubans can visit 
each other's countries? I understand that we have yet to determine the 
cause of illnesses suffered by U.S. Embassy personnel in Cuba, for 
which there is no evidence implicating the Cuban Government, despite 
kneejerk claims by some to the contrary. But the last such incident was 
more than a year ago, and there are certainly U.S. Foreign Service 
Officers who would welcome the opportunity to serve in Havana. Both 
governments should be working to create favorable conditions for 
restaffing each other's consular services so they can better serve the 
people of our two countries.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)
 Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, I was absent, but had I been 
present, I would have voted no on rollcall vote No. 358, the 
confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 487, Robert J. Luck, of Florida, 
to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
  Mr. President, I was absent, but had I been present I would have 
voted no on rollcall vote No. 359, the motion to invoke cloture on 
Executive Calendar No. 488, Barbara Lagoa, of Florida, to be United 
States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.

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