Florida Rep. Giménez warns of "selling" Cuba to Russia, asks Biden to sanction the Cuban regime

Florida Rep. Carlos A. Giménez criticized this Sunday the close alliance with the Russian government of the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel, the man appointed president of Cuba by General Raúl Castro, as well as the growing concessions of Havana to Moscow.

“Castro's communist dictatorship is once again selling the island of Cuba to Russia; the regime even supports [Vladimir] Putin's war against Ukraine,” Giménez wrote on his official social media.

“Instead of appeasing the Castros, the president of the United States [Joe Biden] should impose sanctions against the brutal regime!” added the representative of Florida, of Cuban origin, who was mayor of Miami-Dade for one decade.

Giménez's pronouncement is a reaction to the news that Havana offered the right to use Cuban land for 30 years to Russian companies, in an unusual deal for foreign investors revealed last week during a meeting between officials and businessmen from both regimes.

“¡En lugar de apaciguar a los #Castro, el presidente de EE. UU. [Joe #Biden] debería imponer #sanciones contra el brutal régimen!”, dijo @RepCarlos ⬇️ https://t.co/jfHuG9GDty

— ADNCuba - Noticias de Cuba (@CubaAdn) May 22, 2023

According to Reuters, Boris Titov, head of the Russian delegation of the Cuban-Russian Business Committee, told a businessmen's forum in Havana that Cuba had decisively opened the door to investment.

"They are giving us preferential treatment (...) The path is clear," Titov told the packed forum at the Hotel Nacional in Havana.

Titov, business adviser to the Russian presidency, said that Cuba had offered companies from his country the right to make use of Cuban land for a period of 30 years, an unusual concession to foreign companies in the communist country, notes Reuters .

Additionally, Cuba would exempt Russian companies from import tariffs on certain technology and allow them to repatriate their profits, a rare benefit in the context of Cuba's communist-dominated economy.

The previous week it also emerged that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Chernyshenko had arrived in Cuba the day before to "strengthen strategic ties between the two countries, in the midst of a difficult international situation," according to the Prensa Latina news agency.

The official Cuban media reported that Chernyshenko, who traveled to the island for the XX session of the intergovernmental commission for Russia-Cuba economic-commercial and scientific-technical cooperation, would meet with President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has spared no praise. and political gestures favorable to Vladimir Putin.