“China is prepared to capitalize on its diplomatic, economic, and military initiatives with Cuba’s support,” says the head of the Southern Command.
14ymedio, Madrid, 3 April 2025 — Cuba-born US congressman Carlos Giménez sent a letter to Donald Trump’s government on Wednesday to formally request that all trips to the Island be banned and all remittances be eliminated, with humanitarian exceptions approved by the State Department. “I have sent the formal request to the White House to eliminate all remittances and all flights to the murderous dictatorship in Cuba,” the politician, a Republican member of the House of Representatives for Florida, wrote on his social networks.
And he argued: “President Trump has been the best ally that the people of Cuba have had, and now it is time to eliminate all the channels of income that the regime has to continue repressing and massacring our people.” In his letter, addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, Giménez states that the Cuban regime “is listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, shelters fugitive criminals from US justice and represents a clear threat to the security of the United States and our citizens.”
This, he explains, is “of great importance” for the Cuban-American community, which, he says, received the tightening of restrictions on travel and remittances during Donald Trump’s first term as “a very necessary measure to limit the regime’s access to resources and foreign exchange to continue exploiting and oppressing the Cuban people.”
“President Trump has been the best ally that the people of Cuba have had, and now it is time to eliminate all the income channels of the regime”
The congressman also applauds the recent measures of “prohibiting the arrival of boats from Cuba,” although what was approved consists of enabling the Coast Guard to inspect any ship that reaches the US coast that had the Island as one of its last five destinations. And he urges the secretary: “we need to do more.”
Since Trump assumed the presidency two and a half months ago, Giménez has shown himself to be one of the most active supporters of tightening the policy towards the Island. On March 20, he sent the Department of Internal Security a list with the names of more than 100 people whom he asked to investigate and deport for having alleged links to the Castro regime.
Giménez represents a district with a large Cuban population in particular and Hispanic in general in South Florida and was mayor of Miami-Dade County between 2011 and 2020. He concluded his message this Thursday with a warning to the regime: “The time has come. You have little left.”
Also this Thursday, Martí Noticias reported Giménez’s speech in a
hearing before the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives in which national security challenges were evaluated. To the Republican’s question of whether Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were a threat to the security of the United States and, if so, how serious it would be, the head of the Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, replied that the Island remains a “very challenging” threat, but that they have aircraft and ships to “block those maneuvers.”
The congressman also asked him if he considered Cuba to be “the head of the snake,” by facilitating the presence of Russia, Iran and China in Latin America, to which the officer replied in the affirmative.
“The time has come. You have little left”
“Instead of addressing the economic disaster that [Cuba] created with its failed policies, it is strengthening its ties with US adversaries,” said Holsey: “Cuba’s evil actions weaken our relations in the region, encourage irregular migration and threaten the security of the United States.”
Likewise, he said that “China is prepared to capitalize on its diplomatic, economic and military initiatives with the support of Cuba” and added that Havana receives telecommunications infrastructure built by Huawei, TP-Link and ZTE, “used to spy on its population and discourage political dissent.”
Cuba serves, he said, as a place “for the collection of intelligence and the deployment of force by our adversaries, which is particularly worrying given its proximity to the United States.”
In the same hearing, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson referred to Vladimir Putin’s “resurrection of the failed Soviet Union,” which includes “maintaining the few murderous allies they have in the world,” starting with Cuba.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.