Scott and Rubio criticize Biden’s “passivity” and call for more sanctions against Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba

Florida senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, harshly criticized this Thursday the “passivity” of the “soft policy” of the Biden administration towards Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, and called for tougher sanctions against what they called “destabilizing agents.” in Latin America.

“We want to be the voice of thousands of people who have been affected by the horrible dictators in Latin America,” Scott said during a press conference in Washington to mark the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month in the United States and celebrate Hispanic Heritage Day. Independence in Central America.

Accompanied by Florida district representatives María Elvira Salazar and Mario Diaz-Balart and Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan activists, Scott insisted that due to President Joe Biden’s “appeasing strategy”, the United States has lost credibility and influence in the region.

“We believe that the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Nicaragua deserve democracy, human rights and freedom from tyranny. We know that our hemisphere has become a more dangerous place due to the weakness of Joe Biden,” said the senator, who defined five actions that in his opinion the administration should implement immediately to bring security to the region.

Scott’s recommendations include reestablishing the sanctions against Cuba that the Biden administration lifted last May and approving the Democracy Act presented in Congress in October, which seeks, among other things, to apply sanctions to those who negotiate with the military sector of the island and provide Internet to the Cuban people.

The senator asked for the closure of the Cuban embassy in Washington, to include the FARC guerrilla again —today converted into a political party after the peace agreements with the Colombian government—on the list of terrorist organizations, in addition to urging the Treasury Department to block access to banks for people involved in human rights violations in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and demanding the withdrawal of licenses to all US companies doing business with Cuba.

“If President Biden did these five things today, our hemisphere would be a much safer place. (…) These actions would cut off the profits that these dictators use to finance their reigns of terror. That should be our goal,” insisted Scott, known for his harsh criticism of the Democratic Biden administration.

President Joe Biden and Rick Scott have very different positions and their most recent confrontation involves a bill that Scott introduced this week in the Senate that seeks to review and approve federal projects such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare every five years, something that Biden has called it “somewhat hard to believe.”

For his part, Senator Marco Rubio seconded Scott’s words and drew attention to the coming to power of the leftist Gustavo Petro to the presidency of Colombia.

He also predicted that the administration will seek a rapprochement with Cuba after the midterm elections next November.

“After the elections in November we are going to see that this administration is going to seek to reopen relations with Cuba because that is what the leftist base is looking for. The new government of Colombia is going to seek recognition of the government of (Nicolás) Maduro in Venezuela,” Rubio said.

Members of human rights organizations from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba asked the US administration to toughen its policy against these governments, “responsible for the violation of human rights and the pain of thousands of people,” Nicaraguan activist Muneca Fuentes insisted.

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