Mario Diaz-Balart slams planned U.N. visit by Cuban President

U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart said Cuba’s communist leader shouldn’t be allowed to visit the U.S. That includes a trip to address the United Nations in New York expected next month.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel will address the U.N. General Assembly in September, according to a report in the Miami Herald. While the newspaper said it remained unclear if Díaz-Canel has been issued a visa by the U.S., Díaz-Balart suggested President Joe Biden’s administration would allow the Cuban leader into the U.S. Díaz-Canel previously addressed the General Assembly in 2021.

“I am appalled by the Biden Administration’s appeasement of dangerous adversaries and rewarding human rights abusers, this time by granting the special privilege of U.S. entry to Cuba’s Díaz-Canel, and the rest of his ‘delegation’ of thugs, particularly after the expulsion of Cuban diplomat-spies over the past two decades from the missions in New York and Washington, D.C. for espionage,” the Miami Republican said.

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump’s administration expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the nation’s embassy in Washington. At the time, the State Department said the action took place “due to Cuba’s failure to take appropriate steps to protect our diplomats in accordance with its obligations under the Vienna Convention,” a seeming reference to a mysterious illness affecting the U.S. embassy in Havana. The conditions were later called Havana Syndrome by the State Department.

Díaz-Balart said it surprised him little that the United Nations would allow a visit from the Cuban leader.

“Regrettably, the U.N. continues to falter in its duty to protect human rights by allowing some of the worst human rights offenders to partake in critical discussions and even hold positions on the Human Rights Council,” he said.

As Chair of the House State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee, Díaz-Balart in July advanced a budget that stepped-up spending on U.S. intervention in Cuba.

“I have repeatedly emphasized that I will support America’s friends and oppose our enemies. For that reason, my bill deliberately excludes funds for the U.N.’s regular budget due to its rampant antisemitism, coddling of dictators, and failure to achieve its core purposes of promoting peace, international comity, and human rights,” Díaz-Balart said.

“I am committed to safeguarding American national security interests and taxpayer dollars to defend our values. Once the U.N. takes itself seriously, then I will take it seriously. The U.N.’s continued predilection to amplify the messages of anti-American dictators and the world’s worst human rights abusers, such as Díaz-Canel, only confirms that my decision to defund it was a good one.”