U.S. lawmakers discuss Cuba during event in Miami’s Little Havana

MIAMI – Republican and Democratic lawmakers participated in a discussion about the situation in Cuba on Monday at the Bay of Pigs Museum & Library in Miami’s Little Havana.

The event with Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maria Elvira Salazar, Mike Waltz, Mario Diaz Balart, and Michael McCaul marked the two-year anniversary of historic protests.

“This is about freedom! This isn’t a Republican issue; this isn’t a Democrat issue,” said Waltz, a veteran U.S. Army officer and Republican from Boynton Beach.

The Cuban regime punished hundreds of protesters. Law enforcement around the island detained close to 1,900 Cubans and over 780 remain behind bars, according to human rights groups.

“We can not allow the continued repression. We have to continue to apply sanctions,” said Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat who graduated from the University of Florida.

Salazar, a retired Cuban-American journalist from Miami, said Cubans who want change now have access to social media to keep the world informed about the famine.

The lawmakers said they were also concerned about the influence that Russia and China have on Cuba. Diaz-Balart referred to this as a “serious national security threat” to the U.S.

“There is a spy station that China has now set up just 90 miles from where we sit today,” said McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, officials confirmed after The Wall Street Journal reported about the electronic eavesdropping station.

Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío refuted the WSJ report and told The Associated Press that it was “slanderous speculation” allegedly “to cause harm and alarm.”

President Joe Biden has been dealing with tensions between the U.S. and China after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Xi Jinping last month after Chinese officials’ met with CIA Director William Burns, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited Beijing.