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Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am a cosponsor of the resolution offered by Senator Kaine and others to prohibit the unauthorized use of American Armed Forces in hostilities against Cuba.

Now, some may think this isn't a necessary concern, but to quote the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief:

Cuba is next.

This is urgent, and it requires immediate attention by the U.S. Senate.

Cuba is a bankrupt country. It is the size of Tennessee. It has neither the capacity nor the intention to threaten the United States. And even before the Trump administration cut off oil from Venezuela and started illegally blockading oil shipments to Cuba from other countries, Cuba's economy was barely functioning.

Today, electricity is unavailable for most hours of the day across the entire island. Think of what that means for everyday life. It doesn't take much imagination. Just think about what it is like in our own communities when there is a power outage for a period of time.

In Cuba, where it is sustained, it is catastrophic. Havana's streets are filled with smoldering garbage. The country is facing economic collapse, literally, and the United States is complicit in that economic collapse.

So by causing Cuba's economy to fall apart and leaving millions of Cubans without enough food or access to medical care, the White House hopes to create a national security ``emergency'' to justify regime change, including, if necessary, the use of military force.

And we have seen that script play out before with the Trump administration.

President Trump has said as much. He has repeatedly threatened to use force against Cuba. Without any legal justification, he said:

[I]t may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn't really matter because they're really are down to . . . fumes. They have no energy, they have no money.

The reason Cuba is ``down to [the] fumes'' is due to its own government, its failed policies. And because of the U.S. oil blockade, both, together, have led to this catastrophic situation.

But no American President, under any circumstances, ``friendly'' or ``unfriendly,'' should threaten to take over another sovereign nation. It is Congress's responsibility to reject such a flagrant ``might makes right'' abuse of Executive power.

There is plenty of blame to go around for how we got to this point. Cuba's leaders, whose priority is holding onto power, do systematically violate the rights of the Cuban people, and they align themselves--the Cuban leaders--with, ideologically, some of the world's worst regimes.

Cuba's centralized economy has practically ruined the country, despite its tropical climate and abundance of rich farmland.

For our part--we control our part--the United States has tried to overthrow the Cuban Government by armed invasion, by assassination, by financing Cuban dissidents, and imposing a web of punitive sanctions with extraterritorial reach.

So after 65 years of an embargo that has not achieved any of its goals but has exacerbated and tested the daily suffering of the Cuban people who are not our adversary, the United States and Cuba need to find a way to peacefully coexist.

A few weeks ago, I outlined what I thought such an agreement would look like. I won't repeat that here, but at the very least, the President should, No. 1, remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which has no legal or factual basis and which no other country agrees with.

And the President should pressure Congress to repeal the failed U.S. embargo so Cuba's economic reconstruction can begin.

And Cuba's leaders--and they have enormous responsibility here-- should abandon central planning of the economy. It has been an absolute disaster for the Cuban people. And the Cuban Government must release all political dissidents and accept the right of the Cuban people to express themselves freely and without fear of prosecution.

Political and economic change in Cuba is long overdue. Neither is sufficient by itself. The Cuban people--90 percent of whom were born after the 1959 revolution--they want leaders who accept the need for fundamental changes in how to govern with greater participation of the people, greater transparency, and greater freedom and real accountability.

Rather than threats of a ``takeover,'' the United States should negotiate a solution with Cuba that puts U.S. national interests and the needs and aspirations of the Cuban people first, not the interests of the Cuban Government or American billionaires.

I urge my colleagues to support Senator Kaine's resolution. The American people do not want to wake up in the morning to learn that we are at war with Cuba, and I urge the Trump administration and Cuba's leaders to take the steps I have outlined to finally put an end to the decades of hostility between us.

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