Gov. Ron DeSantis is enthusiastic about the “boom” that can happen in Cuba should “a halfway legitimate government that wasn’t 100% corrupt and actually respected people’s rights and the rule of law” take over from the current communist regime.
“Some of your kids and grandkids will be going to Spring Break there. They’ll be going on honeymoons there. People will be doing golf trips there. They’ll be doing all kinds of stuff. It will be a very successful island,” DeSantis said Wednesday at West Palm Beach’s DeSantis Family Chapel.
Yet despite his belief that Cuba can return to being the American getaway it was in the middle of the last century before Fulgencio Batista’s removal, he doesn’t want newly free Cubans coming to the U.S.
Rather, he believes “people in Cuba and people in the US, maybe exiles, who want to be a part of a solution” should be “in Cuba doing that.”
DeSantis believes “having a pro-Western, pro-America, free government in Cuba would be a boon for that island.”
“That island’s got a lot of potential and a lot of different things. And so hopefully we see that day,” he added.
But he didn’t sound entirely sold on the effort to effect regime change in Venezuela, suggesting that removing Nicolas Maduro may not ultimately be sufficient.
“Getting Maduro was an amazing operation. I think how this government post-Maduro operates, I still think that’s an open question. You basically left everyone else in, and you have a sword of Damocles over them, saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got to change your behavior, otherwise this could be you next.’ And I think that that’s a reasonable approach, and we’ll see whether that ultimately ends up with a free Venezuela or not.”