Dem Rep. Smith: Trump Acting Like We Can Take over Cuba

Friday on CNN’s “News Central,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said the Trump administration was treating Cuba “like a country that we can crush and take over,” which he said was contrary to international law.

Co-host Boris Sanchez said, “You’ve been critical of the U.S. policy on Cuba in this administration. And I do want to ask you about this CBS report that the DOJ is moving to indict Raul Castro in connection to the deadly shooting of unarmed planes operated by a humanitarian group in 1996. There were four men that were killed, three Americans, citizens, international investigators, a commission, that was hired by the UN found that they were over international waters. And according to the Miami Herald, Spanish sister paper as Nuevo Herald, there are recordings of Raul Castro taking responsibility for it. We should note that CNN has not verified those recordings, but they’ve been cited as evidence before. Do you think Castro should be held accountable?”

Smith said, “Yeah. I mean, there’s two things about that. Well, I don’t know the full details of it, but certainly if you’re looking to hold people accountable for a crime like that, I think that’s perfectly appropriate. That’s different than putting a blockade on Cuba and effectively trying to starve the entire Cuban population. So yes, we should look into that. And he should be held accountable if we do find that crimes were committed. Now, I will also point out that as the U.S. is busy blowing up boats down in Latin America without any authorization from Congress and killing now hundreds of people. Now we say we had a reason for it. But look, we have to try to impose a not imposed work on a rules based international order, and we can’t have a different set of rules for ourselves than we have for everybody else. So that question is very complicated.”

He added, “But my criticism of Cuba policy is not trying to hold them accountable for that type of a crime if it was committed and if there’s proof. My criticism is we are treating Cuba like a country that we can crush and take over, and that’s contrary to international law. And I don’t think what we should be doing.”

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