[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 122 (Tuesday, July 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4844-S4846]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                  Cuba

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I would like to speak about a topic I 
spoke about before, and that is our policy toward Cuba. I couldn't help 
but think, as I look at the Cubans protesting in the street, especially 
as I see so many people in the streets in places where both my wife 
Marcelle and I have walked, and actually our granddaughter Sophia, 
where we know a number of the people there, and we see them protesting, 
it hits twice as hard. They are demanding greater freedom and economic 
opportunity. This illustrates a widespread hardship and hunger and the 
need for fundamental change in Cuba.
  Human rights are universal. Cuban people are no different from people 
anywhere in the world. They want to be able to speak freely. They don't 
want fear of retribution.
  We have been told that the Biden administration is conducting a 
review of the Trump administration's policy. It is the Trump 
administration's policy toward Cuba which is now in effect. There is 
nothing unusual about that review. New administrations regularly 
conduct such reviews. But it is now mid-July, and the key question that 
needs to be answered is not very complicated.
  It is axiomatic that we have profound disagreements with the Cuban 
Government. They have held power since 1959. They have held power by 
outlawing opposition political parties. Dissent is often punished with 
physical abuse and

[[Page S4845]]

imprisonment. The government's crackdown on the recent protests, 
calling the protesters counterrevolutionaries and blaming the United 
States for Cuba's ills, is predictable. They have blamed us for many 
years.
  I look beyond the headlines. There is no doubt that the Cuban people, 
many of whom I have met, and I know they struggle from day to day to 
make ends meet--they want greater freedom, and they want a better life. 
They have told me that. They have told Marcelle. They have told the 
other Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who have traveled there with 
me. But the question now is, How should we respond? It comes down to 
whether you believe that we should continue a policy of unilateral 
sanctions, which have been in effect for decades, much of my life--they 
have completely failed to achieve their objectives, and they have 
contributed to the daily misery of Cuba's people--or should we instead 
pursue a policy of engagement?
  I believe President Obama got it right. You know, one definition of 
``insanity'' is to keep doing what has repeatedly and demonstrably 
failed. In Cuba, it is worse than that. Our policy, which does not 
work, has emboldened Cuba's hardliners, and it provides an excuse for 
Cuba's authorities to crack down on those who dare to protest. But 
worse than that, it has created a vacuum. And guess who is exploiting 
that vacuum a few miles from our shores? Well, of course, the Russians 
and the Chinese. And we undercut the Cuban private sector.
  By any objective measure, it is time for President Biden to act on 
his pledge to ``reverse the failed Trump policies'' that have 
``inflicted harm on Cubans and their families'' and ``done nothing to 
advance democracy and human rights.''
  I feel that if we allow those Trump sanctions to persist, we only 
undermine these principles. They restrict the freedom of movement and 
economic autonomy of the Cuban people. They compound the suffering 
caused by the Cuban Government's own repressive policies and well-known 
economic mismanagement. In fact, the repression in Cuba didn't decrease 
during the Trump administration; it increased.
  Biden administration officials have repeatedly said that democracy 
and human rights will be at the core of our policy toward Cuba. Well, I 
have been a defender of those principles for 50 years, and human rights 
and political freedom should be a key element not just of our policy 
but also of our engagement with Cuba.
  But, again, the question is how best to support the Cuban people who 
seek greater freedom and a better life. Is it to continue a policy that 
has achieved neither, which is likely to be used as an excuse by those 
in power to further stifle dissent?
  In fact, engagement with Cuba will honor our commitment to human 
rights and the recognition that American presence can be a positive 
force in closed societies. That is the argument that Secretary Blinken 
and others, both Democrats and Republicans, have rightly made in 
defense of diplomacy and engagement throughout the world.
  Neither engagement nor continuation of the Trump sanctions can 
guarantee Cuba's political transformation. That is ultimately a 
decision for the Cuban people. But--but--but engagement stands a far 
greater chance of creating a new dynamic beneficial to the Cuban 
people.
  President Obama's engagement with Cuba showed that U.S. travel, 
exchanges, remittances, and business ties expand opportunities and 
information and income for Cubans, boosting the private sector and 
increasing economic independence.
  I visited a number of these people, often young people starting their 
own businesses--small businesses, private businesses--doing it because 
of President Obama's engagement with Cuba. It also initiated working-
level discussions on a wide range of issues, from law enforcement to 
property claims, to public health and environmental protection.
  Raul Castro and his generation are in the process of handing over 
power to the next generation. I compliment him on that. The current 
leadership is rooted in the past, but they are also deep in a debate 
about how to reform the economy, how to regulate the private sector, 
and how to navigate citizen demands for pluralism, something they have 
not seen. I believe American citizens and diplomats alike should 
participate in that debate--and not from a distance, not from 
Washington and New York and elsewhere, but down there.
  Cuba's private sector offers a particular opportunity because Cuba's 
economic policies are changing in ways that enable U.S. engagement to 
have greater impact than was impossible even during the Obama years.
  A new law will soon greatly expand the legal scope for private 
business activity, and another is expected to give entrepreneurs legal 
status that will permit them to receive foreign investment. The 
government is enabling private businesses to import supplies and export 
products.
  Any of us who come from States that have an agricultural industry 
should look at this. For the first time, the Cuban Government is 
calling for foreign investment in private farm cooperatives. But for 
U.S. citizens and businesses to be able to engage, several steps are 
needed.
  We have to remove the restrictions that limit the flow of 
remittances, both family assistance and ``donative'' remittances mainly 
used to pay and support private entrepreneurs.
  Restore the travel regulations that were in effect when the Obama-
Biden administration left office. This includes eliminating or 
significantly reducing the Cuba Restricted List of business entities, 
ending the prohibition on lodging in Cuban hotels, and allowing U.S. 
airlines to service provincial airports.
  Reverse the frivolous ``state sponsor of terrorism'' designation that 
former Secretary Pompeo almost flippantly announced 9 days before 
leaving office.
  Suspend title III of the Helms-Burton Act, as all the Presidents did 
from 1996 to 2019, Republican and Democratic Presidents alike.
  These regulatory changes would permit the private sector to activate 
and would be no burden on the U.S. Government. It would be the private 
sector activating.
  We don't need some grand diplomacy to do this. Dialogue with Cuba can 
resume at the working level. Human rights advocacy at whatever level 
should be a key part of any engagement policy, as it is in our 
relations with other autocratic governments.
  There would be broad support in this country for a return to 
engagement. There would be vocal support from U.S. agriculture, from 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, from many Cuban Americans, and from many 
in Cuba whose lives have become immeasurably worse due to the COVID 
pandemic. Given time to work, engagement policies would expand the 
constituency for engagement in Miami as more Cuban Americans travel and 
build economic ties.
  This is also how you make progress with Cuba on cases of political 
prisoners or other violations of human rights. You don't make this 
progress by making ultimatums or threats or repeating slogans that 
sound great but achieve nothing in practice. It can't be by 
conditioning U.S. aid because we don't gave aid to Cuba. We do to some 
military dictatorships, of course, like Egypt. It can't be by canceling 
sales of U.S. weapons. We don't sell weapons to Cuba the same way we do 
to some other repressive governments, like Saudi Arabia. It is through 
building relations by making progress on issues where we share 
interests, which can create the conditions for progress--making 
progress on issues where we differ, like human rights and property 
claims.
  I don't expect we are going to come down here and everybody is going 
to say: We all agree on everything. Let's talk about the things where 
we do have differences. But you don't talk about it--you don't get 
anywhere by making ultimatums from a country away.
  I hope the Biden administration will be guided first and foremost by 
what is in our national interest but also in the interests of the Cuban 
and American people. Candidate Biden was right when he pledged, and I 
repeat, to ``reverse the failed Trump policies'' that have ``inflicted 
harm on Cubans and their families'' and ``done nothing to enhance 
democracy and human rights.''
  It is time to act on that pledge. It is time to encourage so many of 
these

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young people--young students, young entrepreneurs, young business 
owners like those I visited and met with in Cuba--it is time to say: 
Yes, you can be part of the world. Yes, you can work with those in our 
country who want to make your life better. If we do that, we will see 
the real change--not slogans of change but substantive change.
  I see my distinguished friend and colleague from Ohio on the floor. I 
will ask to put my full statement in the Record.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio
  Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague from Vermont, the President pro 
tempore of the U.S. Senate.
  I was able to listen to some of his remarks regarding Cuba. This is a 
truly historic time in that island country. The demonstrations, I am 
told, are as large as they have been since at least 1959.
  My hope is that the countries of the Americas, all of which I just 
visited--four of them down in Latin America--that believe in democracy, 
that believe in the ability for people to come together and gather and 
express their continues, that believe in strong human rights, would 
come together and support the Cuban people at this critical point.
  My understanding is, there are some opportunities to ensure that 
internet access continues among those demonstrating. My understanding 
is that there are human rights abuses occurring even now as we talk 
with regard to those demonstrators.
  I appreciate my colleague. He has spent a lot of time trying to take 
the Cuban relationship, which has been a fraught one, and make it 
better. My hope is that what we are seeing right now on the streets of 
Havana and elsewhere around that country will lead to a better day for 
the people of Cuba.