Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to raise concerns about this amendment that would constitute a significant change to U.S. foreign and banking policies that should be carefully considered by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Senate Banking Committee. These provisions have far-reaching foreign policy implications which make their inclusion in this bill unsupportable. According to the State Department, ``Cuba has one of the world's most secretive and non-transparent national banking systems. Cuba has no financial intelligence unit.'' Moreover, according to an October 28 statement by the Financial Action Task Force, FATF, ``Cuba has not committed to the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism international standards. Cuba has also not constructively engaged with the Task Force, which has identified Cuba as having strategic deficiencies that pose a risk to the international financial system.'' This amendment would allow Cuba--the Banco Nacional de Cuba--to become the only country on the State Department's State-Sponsors of Terrorism list to have direct access to U.S.-based financial institutions. We do not have similar exceptions for Iran, Syria, and Sudan. It is important to understand that under Cuban law the Castro regime has a monopoly on all banking, commerce, and trade. Therefore, this amendment would allow Cuba's totalitarian regime to directly open corresponding accounts in U.S.-based financial institutions.…”