International Affairs
Israel
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Two state solution
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Support Israel
Palestine
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Two state solution
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Support Palestine's right for independence
Ukraine
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Keep funding Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Putin has made no secret he wants to reestablish the Soviet Union Block by annexing the counties around Russia taking over one country and territory at a time.
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We are supporting Ukraine with our money and not our blood. If we do not support Ukraine, in time, it will cost us more money and start costing us American lives.
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We need to get NATO to increase their financial support.
Cuban Embargo
IT’S TIME TO END THE CUBAN EMBARGO
I’ve visited Cuba 18 times, mostly in the past 10 years, most recently in the Spring and Fall of 2023, and have spoken personally with hundreds of Cuban citizens. Their lives under the current regime are awful, and in the past year have actually gotten worse. While there’s no question that the current repressive regime is responsible for this misery, a significant part of the problem stems from the embargo on most trade with Cuba that the United States has had in place
for more than 60 years.
The Cold War purpose of the embargo was to bring down the Castro regime and establish a democratic government in the island nation. Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and ruled until 2008. He died in 2016 and yet, Republicans like my opponent are still fighting him; he’s their favorite communist bogeyman. I find it ironic that the US has normalized relations with Vietnam, a communist country responsible for the deaths of more than 60,000 American
soldiers, yet can’t find a similar path to restoring a civil relationship with Cuba.
To use a well-worn cliché, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In 60 years, the embargo has not achieved its stated goal of toppling the Cuban government. What it has done is given the communists a scapegoat—the United States—to blame for its economic failures from; power outages, serious food & medical shortages, sewage & road repairs, infrastructure failures, to garbage pick-up and more. Resulting
in devastation of the population. It’s time to radically change the policy. It’s time to clearly recognize that Steube and his ultra-right MAGA colleagues have only one real interest in maintaining the embargo—and that is to pander for the ever-decreasing number of votes from Cuban-Americans who remember Castro and won’t let go—even if it would mean improving the lives of today’s Cubans.
Consider this: in the past two years, about half a million Cubans have fled their country, becoming refugees, many thousands of whom are attempting to come to America. It’s a larger outpouring of Cubans than the Mariel Boatlift. And the government has been willing to let these dissidents go this time because their exits weakens the opposition on the island. Cubans are ready for a change from the communist regime. Concurrently, the Russians are coming back into Cuba,
and the Chinese are making a presence.
I firmly believe that ending the embargo and removing Cuba from the list of State
Sponsors of Terrorism would change the type of government there, resulting in an economic system resembling U.S. capitalism. It’s the smart thing to do; it’s the humanitarian thing to do.
Finally, ending the embargo will have a real, positive impact on the 17th Congressional District in Florida. Why? Because U.S. farmers and other exporters will be shipping billions of dollars’ worth of commodities and manufactured good to Cuba through the Port of Manatee. In the simplest of terms, this means jobs.