Well, it looks like while the administration may be willing to talk to Cuba and ease restrictions on the regime, they are not quite ready to remove them from the list of countries that support terrorism. This begs the question though: is it a good idea to open trade with a country that supports terrorism?

Cuba currently harbors members from many different terrorist organizations that operate in Colombia, Spain, Puerto Rico, and other countries. This reassertion that Cuba still sponsors terrorism comes on the heels of a declaration by Raul Castro that it should be the United States who makes the important moves towards the normalization of relations since it was the US that imposed the sanctions to begin with. Of course, with the restricted media in Cuba it is not easy to refute this assertion, but the fact is that the embargo was put into effect (on Castro’s regime) as a result of Cuba’s expropriation of US businesses and their alliance with the Soviet Union. That was so long ago that people tend to forget. It shows that the Castro regime is only interested in extracting concession after concession from the United States instead of seriously changing its ways. This is not a surprise. The Castros’ intransigence is something that the Cuban-American exile community has been trying to explain to the world for 50 years.

America cannot keep sending the signal to the world that we will simply give in to the whims and the demands of rogue nations that support terrorism or pose a threat to stability. Cuba, historically, has been the focal point of the most fervent anti-Americanism in the region and is the “godfather” of the leftist movement in Latin America that are currently gaining traction. A mixture of local corrupt government and US inattention has left Latin America vulnerable to the utopian ideals espoused by communism, but the militant communism present in Cuba is only possible through the repression of the local population and support from other nations. Currently, the Castro-Chavez axis has been able to recruit several other nations in the hemisphere and they openly undermine our interests wherever they can. We cannot turn a blind eye to Cuba simply because it is no longer an active threat to the United States. Our enemies in the region are increasing and Iran’s relation with Cuba and Venezuela have improved significantly. The threat of a nuclear armed terrorist-sponsoring state with allies in this hemisphere would put our national security at serious risk.

Cuba has become an ideological battlefield where “socialism” is perceived to have defeated democracy and free enterprise. Were we to help change that, the leftists coming to power around the region would no longer have an example or a model to point to… the tools exist on the ground: there is a growing and more vocal pro-democracy movement on the island that is shaking things up. Right now, the worst action to take would be to give the Cuban repressive machine a new lease on life by opening up trade and normalizing relations with the communist regime. We need to help those dissidents who are peacefully resisting the dictatorship, both for moral reasons and for national security reasons.

What we have witnessed instead is increasing calls for doing business with the communist regime and praise for their “great” health care system. Congressional delegations go to the island without visiting the families of political prisoners or observing anything outside of what Castro has authorized. Presidents have paid only lip-service to the cause of Cuban freedom since the days of Kennedy. Between the simple publicity stunts such as Jimmy Carter’s “endorsements” of the Castro regime and the Michael Moore documentary that extols the greatness of communist healthcare much harm has been done to the cause of freedom in Cuba, imagine what opening up our wallets would do…

-AG