Secure America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I ask time used by Democratic speakers during today's session count towards the bill S. 2.

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, ever since the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure on Cuba in the hope that Cuba's leaders will either capitulate or the Cuban people will rise up and overthrow them.

Three months ago President Trump said:

Cuba is going to fall pretty soon . . . They want to make a deal so badly . . . and we'll see how that works out.

Like so many of the President's apocalyptic predictions, there is no sign the administration wants to negotiate a deal, and Cuba has not fallen. Instead, the United States oil blockade, which if the tables were turned every one of us would denounce as an illegal act of war, has absolutely paralyzed Cuba's economy. It has plunged the Cuban people into darkness and to misery.

Then on May 20, the Department of Justice announced that it had indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro who is 95. Another U.S. aircraft carrier group has been sent to the Caribbean. The writing on the wall is unmistakable. President Trump is tiptoeing up to leading us into another reckless war, this time with Cuba.

Cuba is a bankrupt country. It is smaller than Virginia. It has neither the capacity nor intention to threaten the United States. And even before the Trump administration cut off the oil, Cuba's economy was barely functioning. Today, electricity is unavailable for most hours of the day and night across the entire island.

So this means that hospitals, schools, factories, food production have ground to a halt. Havana's streets are overflowing with garbage. The country is facing economic collapse literally, and the United States is complicit in that. In fact, that is the point of the U.S. actions.

By causing Cuba's economy to collapse and leaving millions of innocent Cubans without enough food or access to medical care, the White House hopes to create a ``national security emergency.''

It seeks to justify regime change, including, if necessary, using military force. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force against Cuba. Without any legal justification he has said:

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

You know, the reason Cuba is ``down to fumes'' is due to its own government's repressive failed policies and because of the United States oil blockade. But no American President under any circumstances, friendly or unfriendly, should threaten to take over another sovereign nation that poses no imminent or credible threat to our country. And no U.S. Congress should condone such flagrant misuse of military power.

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

The Cuban military's corrupt grip on the economy has practically ruined the economy, and that is on Cuban leadership. But for our part, the United States has tried to overthrow the Cuban government by armed invasion, by assassination, financing Cuban dissidents, and imposing a web of punitive sanctions with extraterritorial reach. Yet after 65 years, the U.S. embargo has not achieved any of its goals. Instead, it has contributed to the daily suffering of the innocent Cuban people.

There is no doubt that political and economic changes in Cuba are long overdue. Neither is sufficient by itself. The Cuban people, 90 percent of whom were born after the 1959 revolution, want leaders who accept the need for fundamental changes in how to govern, with greater participation of the people, greater transparency, greater freedom, and real accountability.

But attacking Cuba would be another reckless and illegal use of United States military power. And no matter what hyperbolic or false accusations are used as a pretext for attacking Cuba, Cuba poses no credible threat to the United States.

Instead of starting another unnecessary war, the United States and Cuba can and must negotiate a deal that puts United States national interests and the needs and aspirations of the Cuban people first.

And, you know, the elements of the deal are pretty obvious. On the United States side, President Trump needs to end restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba--many Vermonters, when that was allowed, went to Cuba, many Americans did--and should support Cuba's struggling private sector. We should support that.

The President should remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. That has no credible legal or factual basis, and no other country agrees with us on that designation. And it should also, the administration, call on Congress to repeal the failed embargo so that reconstruction can begin.

On the Cuban side, Cuba's leaders' only choice is to make a deal. They are staring, literally, at the barrel of a gun. They need to end the military's control of the economy. They need to take steps for American companies to invest in Cuba and help rebuild the country's broken infrastructure. Cuba's leaders must release all political dissidents and accept the right of the Cuban people to express themselves freely and without fear of persecution.

If President Trump and Cuba's leaders take these steps, they could finally put the last vestige of the Cold War in this hemisphere behind us.

But that, regrettably, is not where President Trump is leading us. And like Maduro, Cuba's leaders have always cared more about their own privileges and power than the welfare of the Cuban people.

Nobody here or in Cuba should be under any illusions. An unauthorized, unjustified, reckless war with Cuba is where we are headed. The United States has one playbook that fits all, and that is its approach to dealing with regimes that it doesn't like: pile on the economic sanctions, threaten to wipe them off the face of the Earth, and when that fails, attack.

There is no plan B if things don't go as predicted, no plan for what comes next, and no plan for how to pay for it. A United States invasion of Cuba with warplanes and missiles and Special Forces would pose real risks for the United States, for our troops, and for the Cuban people.

It almost certainly would not be a repeat of the swift capture of Maduro. More likely, Cuba's leaders, sworn and determined to defend their failed revolution, would not give up easily. The fighting could go on for weeks or months.

And assuming they would all eventually flee or be captured or killed, who would govern Cuba? Who would prevent the country from descending into lawlessness and becoming a haven for transnational criminals? Who would be responsible for public services? There is no Cuban Delcy Rodriguez, nor any organized political opposition.

The American people would be saddled with the immense cost of providing security and rebuilding Cuba from the ground up, while millions of Cubans would likely abandon the island to seek refuge in the United States.

The American people overwhelmingly do not want a war with Cuba, especially not after the costly, ill-conceived debacle in Iran, which has defied all the administration's rosy predictions. Rather than causing more suffering and more chaos in Cuba and triggering yet another refugee crisis 90 miles from Florida, President Trump could make history through effective--effective--deal making, not by a violent takeover financed by American taxpayers.

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