Byron Dorgan: “my colleague and I share the goal of democratic reforms in Cuba and human rights in Cuba. It is just that I believe that…”

“my colleague and I share the goal of democratic reforms in Cuba and human rights in Cuba. It is just that I believe that the quickest route to changing the Government of Cuba is not through a policy that for 40 years has been a failure but, instead, by developing policies that we have decided work in China, Vietnam, and elsewhere, policies of engagement. I believe very strongly that having unfettered trade with Cuba and United States citizens traveling in Cuba is the quickest way that exists in order to bring democratic reform and human rights to Cuba. It is interesting to me that in the early 1970s, it was Richard Nixon who went to China. When he went to China, do you know who was the leader of China? Mao Tse Tung, a repressive Communist leader who virtually obliterated human rights in China. Richard Nixon went to China and began an engagement with China to open and expand trade and travel with China over a period of years. Now in the Senate we hear people say, when we have these votes, engagement with China is the way to bring China along on human rights and democratic reforms. Engagement with China, a Communist country, is the way for us to accomplish that goal. They say that with Vietnam as well, a Communist country. Engagement with Vietnam, more trade, more travel, more engagement will move us towards greater human rights and greater democratic reforms in China and Vietnam. But they say that logic does not exist with respect to Cuba. Why?”