As the son of parents who left Cuba for a better life in America, this is a subject Rubio cares about deeply.
He’s also extremely well versed in the history of America’s relationship with Cuba as you’ll see in the videos below.
Watching these videos, though, I can’t help wonder whether Obama’s new Cuba policy will be the spark that launches Rubio’s presidential campaign. I’ve never seen him more impassioned and he now is the leader of the opposition in an area, foreign policy, for which he was not known.
One of Rubio’s main concerns is the precedent it sets for any government which might think it can use hostages as a bargaining point. Susan Jones of CNS News reports:
Rubio: Obama’s New Cuba Policy ‘Puts a Price on Every American Abroad’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) says he’s glad that American “hostage” Alan Gross has been released from a Cuban prison after five years, but he opposes the process by which his release was secured — “because it puts a price on every American abroad.””Governments now know that if they can take an American hostage, they can get very significant concessions from the United States.”As part of the deal to free Gross, the United States will release three Cuban spies: “They’re not just benign Cuban spies,” Rubio — the son of Cuban exiles — told Fox News on Wednesday. “These Cuban spies were involved in providing information to the Cuban government that led to the murder of U.S. citizens in the infamous shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft back in 1996.”These were airplanes that used to patrol the Straits of Cuba to find people on rafts and save their lives. The Cuban government shot them down over international waters and they did so largely based on information that at least one of these spies provided them.
This video shows an appearance Rubio made on Fox yesterday morning:
Rubio was far from finished at that point.
From Katie Glueck and Seung Min Kim at Politico:
Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a likely 2016 presidential contender, was perhaps the most ardent voice to denounce the administration, and one of several Florida Republicans to do so. He and others in the GOP promised to try to derail the White House’s efforts, even as at least one Republican-leaning group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the news of improved ties with Cuba.“It’s part of a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants that this administration has established,” Rubio said on Fox News, one of multiple media appearances he made Wednesday. He insisted that the White House’s plans, which include opening an embassy in Havana, won’t result in more economic freedom or democracy in Cuba, a country that survived decades under a U.S. embargo.
This is an appearance Rubio made on Special Report last night:
Featured image via MRC video.
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