Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) criticized House Democrat leaders after Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) admitted that she had spoken to ambassadors from Mexico and other countries to get oil to Cuba.
During a press briefing on Cuba on Tuesday, Jayapal spoke about how, in January, President Donald Trump had signed an executive order “declaring a national emergency over the threats to America posed by Cuba.” In a post on X, Scott responded to Jayapal’s comments in which she described the sanctions against countries giving oil to Cuba, and firms and banks working with Cuba, as “an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba.”
“DISTURBING: @RepJeffries and @HouseDemocrats, members of your party are OPENLY admitting to aiding a communist adversary in coordination with foreign countries to VIOLATE American sanctions,” Scott wrote. “@POTUS put those sanctions in place to keep Americans SAFE and to hold the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime accountable for their crimes.”
“In January, Trump issued an executive order threatening tariffs on any country supplying fuel to Cuba,” Jayapal explained. “This was this January — just a few months ago, and oil shipments from Venezuela, that’s where Cuba had been getting its oil, were halted after the U.S. operations to kidnap Nicolás Maduro.”
Jayapal continued to explain that “since January, only one Russian tanker of oil has made it to Cuba.” The Democrat congresswoman explained that “one tanker has enough oil, basically for 10 to 14 days of Cuba’s oil needs.”
“It is a crisis beyond imagination. Just this past Friday, on May 1st, Trump signed a broad executive order that widens sanctions and allows for new penalties similar to what we have for Iran and Russia, against foreign banks and firms that are dealing with Cuba,” Jayapal continued. “It also reinforces the ban on U.S. tourism. I have called these sanctions an economic bombing of the infrastructure of Cuba.”
Breitbart News’s Christian K. Caruzo reported in January that in an effort from Trump to put “maximum pressure on Cuba’s Communist Castro regime and to counter its malign influence,” he had “established a process to impose tariffs on any country providing oil to Cuba”:
President Trump, as part of his maximum pressure campaign on Cuba’s Communist Castro regime and to counter is malign influence, established a process to impose tariffs on any country providing oil to Cuba — which the rogue communists desperately need to keep the nation’s barely-functional infrastructure working.
“The President is addressing the depredations of the communist Cuban regime by taking decisive action to hold the Cuban regime accountable for its support of hostile actors, terrorism, and regional instability that endanger American security and foreign policy,” the order reads.
In January, Trump also announced that “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA.”
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