Rick Scott pans Donald Trump administration’s flawed ‘execution’ of Cuba policy

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Monday, Gov. Rick Scott lamented the Donald Trump administration’s “vision” of Cuba policy that has “fallen short in its execution.”

In doing so, Scott, who has not been accompanied by President Trump since launching his campaign for Senate weeks ago, got to the right of the President on this issue.

Scott wrote Pompeo that “the vision announced by the President on June 16th, 2017 has fallen short in its execution,” urging “vigorous execution” of “immediate measures to assemble a team that will vigorously and effectively carry out the President’s policy.”

That policy was intended to be a reversal of relative detente from the Barack Obama White House.

“We are quickly approaching on the one-year anniversary of when the Administration laid-out a new Cuba policy. The course correction was important in letting the international community and the people of Cuba know that the United States would not engage with the dictatorship but would in fact engage and support those who are bravely seeking human rights, freedom and democracy,” Scott wrote.

Scott notes that while moves were made to “prohibit U.S. financial transactions with businesses entities of the Cuban military … [the] scope of those entities was very narrowly defined by the State Department, allowing for numerous loopholes that has permitted the dictatorship to easily circumvent the prohibitions.”

Scott also argues for a blanket ban on visas for those “affiliated with the dictatorship” or “linked to acts of repression.”