Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican candidate for president, criticized Cuba's human rights abuses on Wednesday in the wake of the Obama administration's decision to restore diplomatic ties with the island nation.
"Their views on human rights are not legitimate, they're immoral," Rubio said of the Cuban government,
reports Politico.
Rubio's remarks came during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Rubio added that Americans traveling to Cuba would bolster the Cuban economy but much of that money would go to the communist government. He said that even though other countries do not have an embargo on the island nation as the U.S. does, Cubans do not have full access to the Internet and other technology.
"Why isn't Cuba awash in Samsungs?" Rubio asked. "This is a government that won't even allow you to bring in certain books to the island."
Rubio has been a vocal opponent of President Barack
Obama's decision to restore ties with Cuba, more than 50 years after the U.S. government placed an embargo on the island in 1961. Obama also took Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which got
Rubio particularly fired up.
"Cuba is a country that harbors fugitives of American justice, including a cop killer, including somebody on the 10 Most Wanted list of the FBI," Rubio said last month.
"It's a country that helped North Korea evade U.N. sanctions. It's a country that has two high military officials indicted in federal court for the murder of U.S. citizens in international airspace. That sounds like a terrorist government to me."
Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey was also critical of Obama's efforts to restore relations with Cuba during Wednesday's hearing, Politico reports.
"I have deep concerns that the more these talks progress, the more the administration continues to entertain unilateral concessions without in return getting agreement on fundamental issues that are in our national interest and those of the Cuban people," Menendez said.
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