The recent concessions by President Obama to the Castro regime mark a drastic departure from one of the most consistent tenets of United States foreign policy and traditional American values, and sets a dangerous precedent for other rogue regimes to emulate. The pardoning of convicted Cuban spies follows an ill-advised exchange with the Taliban in which the rhetoric emerging from the White House to justify its actions has been unnervingly similar. As predicted, the course of policy by this administration on caving to terrorist demands makes the United States more vulnerable. We see those repercussions manifest themselves across the globe. Just recently, Venezuela's thug Nicolas Maduro jumped at the opportunity to request an exchange of a convicted criminal in the United States for the freedom of pro-democracy leader Leopoldo Lopez, whom Maduro has jailed in Venezuela. This is not the way to protect U.S. national security interests throughout the world; this is a way of putting them in jeopardy. When we equate unjustly imprisoned Americans to battle-hardened terrorists or convicted spies, we set a dangerous precedent for the world to follow. The Cuban regime has already signaled strongly that it will not unclench its fist, despite recent developments.…
Share
More from Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
I thank my friend, my colleague from Florida, for the time. Mr. Speaker, when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in the year 2007--and this was through legislation that I had the privilege of authoring with Tom Lantos…
I am so proud to be an original cosponsor, along with Chairman Royce and our wonderful ranking member, Mr. Engel, of the PEPFAR Extension Act, which has been led by our colleague Chris Smith of New Jersey and my friend Ms. Barbara Lee of…
I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway), the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and the author of this measure.
I thank the chairman for his kind words and the words of my good friend, Ranking Member Engel. This is truly an unexpected, humbling honor. I thank both of their teams for their leadership in bringing this bill to the floor, and I thank…





