Cuba is violating the rights of an American, and it appears to be solely for trying to get leverage over America, which we will not tolerate.

the problem with the whole issue with travel, in terms of your own stated purpose, is that you are using a general license.

I don't understand how you reward a regime for imprisoning an American citizen. I don't get it.

Whether it is intended or not--excuse me, for interrupting you. But whether it is intended or not, the hard facts are, before our policy changes, Cuba had X amount in reserves. After our policy changes, it has doubled its amount to $5.6…

We see a policy that results in trips featuring salsa dancing, cigar factory tours, baseball games, and even visits with Castro's regime's neighborhood repression committees.

I do expect that to be a high priority--a high priority for me and my colleagues in the Department.

I want an Assistant Secretary in charge of the Western Hemisphere who is going to make it very clear in her work and with our ambassadors in the hemisphere that democracy, human rights, free press are critical elements.

I see that the lack of exertion by State and Treasury on behalf of a capital increase for the Inter-American Development Bank, the only--only--regional bank to not receive the full amount of its requested capital increase.

I have consistently raised the concern, and certainly the position for which you are nominated for would be important in making this concern less of a concern, and that is the funding decreases for Latin America.

You stop the money; the regime gets the message.

How do we explain greater repression, unimaginable that it could be more repressive, but nonetheless that's the reality.

I just want to underscore the importance to American manufacturing and to American production that we impress upon the Chinese their international responsibilities on enforcement of intellectual property issues.

Meantime, repression has spiked. Political arrests have more than doubled in the last year.

Since the Obama administration has eased restrictions on travel and remittances in April 2009, the Castro regime has doubled its hard currency deposits in foreign banks.

So if you are to be confirmed----

The only regional bank that did not receive--everybody--I heard the voices of the Department as it related to everybody else. I didn't hear it about the IDB.

Funding for the region suggests that it is not a priority for this administration and that we haven't yet made the connection between poverty, citizen security, transnational crime, narcotics trafficking, and U.S. interests.

The Western Hemisphere is our hemisphere, and its nations are our friends, our neighbors, our allies, and our economic partners.