The average Cuban won't benefit from normalization of relations between the United States and the communist nation, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce says.
In an interview with KNXAM radio Wednesday, the California Republican said the historic deal that relaxes travel restrictions to Cuba and normalizes relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments will only lead to U.S. money funding the Castro regime.
What it won't do, he charges, is ensure that the Cuban people will get the bulk of U.S. money. Royce firmly rejected President Barack Obama's comparison of the deal to previous normalizations with Vietnam and China.
Audio of the interview was posted by
BuzzFeed.
"Well, it was, and of course what we would have liked to see in that negotiation would be something like the negotiations that went on with Vietnam, that ensured that if we were gonna plow — or change policy and allow money to directly go into the country, that the workers would be the beneficiaries," Royce said in the radio interview.
"The problem in the Cuban system is that when foreign companies go in there, they write the check out to the account controlled by Fidel Castro and by his brother Raul. It's the same with North Korea," Royce said. "And so, it's very different. The president said this was like Vietnam and China, but they're completely different.
"In Vietnam and in China, the workers can actually get a paycheck. In North Korea and Cuba, the check goes to the regime, and the workers get as little as 5 percent of it. So, it's not empowering the Cuban people, and that's why the negotiation really wasn't done properly."
"And that's what's different here," he added. "That's why we're upset with the outcome of the negotiation — the fact that there was very little given from the Cuban side in this negotiation, from Castro's side."
Royce charged that the Castro regime would instead use U.S. money to fund anti-democracy campaigns in South America.
"My concern here is that by leaving this in the hands of Raul and Fidel Castro — they run the state security apparatus — two things are going to happen: the workers are gonna continue to get 5 percent of this, which means the average Cuban is not gonna benefit," he said.
"But, if there's more largesse, well, the Cuban state is gonna get more. And that means that they're gonna use it for anti-democratic campaigns from Venezuela to Bolivia — all of their activities in Latin America that Cuba is engaged in — they need foreign exchange to do it. So, that's sort of the issue here."
Royce also railed against the lack of participation by Congress in the deal.
"I am very troubled by the lack of engagement with Congress on this serious policy shift," he said,
Breitbart News reports.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.