Lies and Blackmail by Anti-Cuban Lobby Impede Financing for Agricultural Sales to Cuba

By Johana Tablada on July 22, 2022

When you read the outrageous things that congressmen like Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz Balart or Mrs. Maria Elvira say, how they shamelessly lie using outrageous double standards to try to deceive those they supposedly represent and justify the inhuman measures against the people of Cuba, one remembers better why a socialist Revolution was made in Cuba.

Amendment No. 137, introduced by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), which would prevent funds made available by H.R. (House Bill 8294) from being used to implement the ban on funding for agricultural sales to Cuba, was put to a vote on the House floor.

This means that had the amendment been approved to facilitate food sales to Cuba, it would be easier and there would be better payment methods, which are currently impossible due to the medieval restrictions (payment in cash and in advance) with which these sales are carried out outside the rules of international trade.

At the conclusion of the debate on the amendment, Diaz-Balart called for a “recorded vote”. After intervening to tell a thousand lies and to scare and deceive everyone by pretending to speak on behalf of the people of a country he despises so much.

Now they celebrate as a victory for having prevented funding for the “regime in Cuba” when in reality what they have obstructed is the desire of other legislators and their constituents to facilitate funding (short term credit) for food purchases for the people of Cuba.

The incredible thing is that the defense of the policy of maximum pressure and abuse against Cuba is presented as the defense of the people who are being tortured every day with the greatest financial, economic and commercial siege on the planet.

The vote was 260 against and 163 in favor, so the amendment did not pass with only one Republican voteing in favor of the initiative.

A day earlier, on July 19, the same amendment No. 84, promoted in the Rules Committee by Rashida Taib (D-MI), had been approved in the House of Representatives. This positive vote was nullified by today’s vote thanks to the lies and mechanisms of extortion and political blackmail of the anti-Cuban lobby and the lack of leadership and decency of the Biden Administration.

Even so, it is commendable that 163 members of the House of Representatives preferred to listen to the growing voices in the United States questioning the abuses against Cuba.

Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English