The last president to set foot on Cuban soil was Calvin Coolidge; at least until yesterday when President Obama arrived in Havana yesterday, March 20, 2016. For the first time in history Air Force One landed in Cuba.

President Obama is meeting with Raul Castro, Cuba’s President, today. They are scheduled to meet for two hours behind closed doors. Subjects to be discussed will be human rights, freeing political prisoners, and increased freedom for Cuba’s people to own and operate businesses. For 55 years, our neighbor, who is only 90 miles to the south, and the United States have been estranged; a trade embargo remains.

Republicans are unhappy about the President’s visit. They believe that Raul and Fidel Castro should free all political prisoners and disavow communism before talks began.

Although Donald Trump said that he is ‘fine’ with the idea of renewing relations with Cuba, because Raul Castro did not meet the President when he arrived, he would have ‘turned the plane around and left.’ Really.

Ted Cruz is angry, (so what’s new). He believes that the President’s efforts to renew a relationship with Cuba are an insult to his ancestors.

The Texas senator said his father was tortured by the Batista regime while his aunt was “brutalized by Castro’s thugs” before fleeing to find “freedom in the United States.”

Although Marco Rubio ended his campaign in disgrace, he still wants to be heard, even if no one wants to listen to him. He called the President’s efforts to engage in talks with the Castro regime “one of the most disgraceful trips ever taken by a U.S. president anywhere in the world.” Rubio’s campaign trips to Florida were the most disgraceful efforts ever made by a failed presidential candidate; Trump defeated him in his home state by nearly 20 points.

“President Obama’s trip to Cuba and his policy of one-sided concessions to this regime are as naïve as his world view and as misguided as his foreign policy affecting other parts of the world,” Rubio wrote.

It must not be forgotten that both Cruz and Rubio are TEA Party darlings, or Freedom Caucus members, whatever they want to call themselves today. They do not believe in negotiation or diplomacy. They would put ‘boots on the ground’ in Cuba and “rescue” the Cuban people.

The Cuban people are very happy about the effort by both countries, and so are 60 percent of Americans. Ignoring the problem has not made it go away. It’s time to cease what hasn’t worked, and become partners with the small nation, if its leadership agrees with America’s conditions.

At least 15 Republican Senators approve of the President’s efforts, and five of the 39 members of Congress who joined Mr. Obama on the trip are Republicans.

What is it with the GOP of today and its rejection of diplomacy? When the Iran nuclear agreement was in progress, Republicans criticized it before it was completed. I don’t remember Democrats doing anything slightly similar during the nuclear arms treaty negotiations between Reagan and Gorbachev. It was pure denial for the GOP, even when Reagan’s chief negotiator called the Iran agreement excellent, and the advantages belonged to the United States.

This is just another instance when Republicans claim that everything the President has accomplished in more than seven years is a failure.

I want to tell the right wing that Trump is proof that they’re not fooling anyone any longer.

Op-Ed

By James Turnage

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