For too long, Washington treated communist Cuba as a relic of the Cold War instead of what it is: a national security threat fewer than 100 miles from our shores. The Castro regime has aligned itself with America’s adversaries, enabled hostile intelligence activity, destabilized our hemisphere, and brutally repressed the Cuban people.
President Donald J. Trump’s administration has confronted that threat with sweeping sanctions, economic pressure, and a national emergency declaration targeting the regime and those who sustain it. No recent administration has pursued a more aggressive campaign of pressure against the dictatorship in Havana.
Now, President Trump has taken that message directly to the world at the United Nations. With the dangerous rise of the communist Democratic Socialists of America, President Trump warned that “the Cuban regime has also spent decades coordinating with left-wing radicals and Communist networks here in the United States.”
It’s clear the Castro regime goes to great lengths to undermine our democracy and to interfere in American elections.
It’s no surprise the Castro regime’s delegation of agents ran out of the General Assembly once President Trump denounced them.
As the only Cuban-born Member of Congress, this fight is personal to me. My family fled communist Cuba because America offered what Castro stole from millions of Cubans: liberty, opportunity, and the right to determine our own destiny.
Now is the time to act.
President Trump has tightened the screws on the dictatorship, expanded sanctions against regime officials and their enablers, and declared Cuba’s actions a threat to American national security. We must keep squeezing the regime, cutting off its lifelines, empowering the democratic opposition, demanding the release of political prisoners, and standing unapologetically with the Cuban people.
At President Trump’s side is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose leadership on Cuba and our hemisphere has been unwavering. Secretary Rubio understands the threat posed by hostile regimes in our neighborhood and the importance of putting the Western Hemisphere at the center of American national security.
The message from the United States must be unmistakable: dictatorship has no place in our hemisphere. President Trump is applying pressure. Secretary Rubio is leading American diplomacy.
Congress must stand firm.
Our objective is clear: a free Cuba and a hemisphere finally free from dictatorship.
Rep. Carlos Giménez represents Florida’s 28th District in Congress.
