The Hill
Rubio to resume holds on two western hemisphere nominees over Cuba
By Pete Kasperowicz - 12/19/11 09:17 AM ET
Freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Saturday that he would block the nomination of two of the Obama administration's western hemisphere nominees, because the State Department has failed to answer his questions about Cuba travel policy.
Rubio said on the Senate floor Saturday that he asked State to look into two "people to people" travel itineraries from a company out of New York. Rubio said that rather than fostering democratic change in Cuba, these trips appear to just be tourism. "The reason why this is problematic is because it gives money to the Castro government," he said.
Rubio said State's reply to Rubio on Saturday was essentially a non-answer.
"Then I got this letter today that, to summarize, basically says: Thank you for your letter, but we can't talk to you about it," Rubio said. "That is not what I expected to get, and so we are going to hold those nominations again until we take this seriously.
"This is a problem," he added. "We have these companies in America that are advertising tourism to Cuba — tourism that is not just a source of irritation, it is a source of hard currency."
Rubio's office said that the two nominations he would hold are those of Roberta Jacobson to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, and Adam Namm to be Ambassador to Ecuador.
Cuban Americans like Rubio have long argued that allowing travel to Cuba allows Americans to bring hard dollars to the island, which the Cuban government can then harvest by forcing Cuban residents to buy goods in dollar stores.
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JG: I am Cuban-American and did not vote for this piece of SCUM from Miami!
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