Salazar Exposes the Cuban Regime’s “Growing Private Sector” Propaganda, Overrules Fidel Castro Apologist in Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Chairwoman María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) convened a hearing in the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee examining the Cuban regime’s propaganda around the island’s “growing private sector” and the Biden Administration’s willingness to embrace it.

Salazar warned the Biden Administration of falling for the Cuban regime’s lies, especially when reopening the U.S. banking system to the Castros’ coffers is at stake.

“The Cuban regime is a master of disguise, and once again, this is another scheme. The Biden Administration is drinking the Kool-Aid,” said Chairwoman Salazar. “This smells like a new scheme from the regime who is desperate for millions of dollars to violate the embargo.”

At the beginning of the hearing, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), a Member of Congress who does not sit on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, arrived uninvited with prepared remarks to derail Chairwoman Salazar’s hearing. The rules of the House Foreign Affairs Committee are that a non-committee member must seek unanimous consent to join a hearing. Rep. Lee is a known apologist of the Cuban communist regime and friend to Fidel Castro. She has visited Cuba over 21 times since the ‘70s and had even gone as far as mourning Fidel Castro’s death in 2016. She once suggested that Cuba’s rationing of fuel was good because it would force Cubans to use bicycles to prevent diabetes and high-blood pressure.

Rep. Lee’s continued presence and clear pro-regime rhetoric at the hearing would have insulted the hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles Chairwoman Salazar represents in Congress. As Chairwoman of the Subcommittee, Rep. Salazar has every right to determine who may and may not speak at the hearings she chairs. 

Chairwoman Salazar pressed two of the State Department’s top officials on the Western Hemisphere and Human Rights on the validity of the claim that there is a growing private sector in Cuba that is truly independent of the Cuban regime’s corruption. She reminded the witnesses that the Cuban regime is totalitarian, and that it impacts every single aspect of the lives of ordinary Cubans.

Officials from the Biden Administration were adamant in their support of reopening of economic relations with ordinary Cubans on the island, and could not give clear answers on how their policies would ensure that everyday Cubans would benefit from the program, and not friends of the regime.

To watch the full hearing, click here.

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