The Cuban-American Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar responded firmly to the Democratic representative Jonathan L. Jackson after his call to lift the sanctions on Cuba, stating that the Cuban people are suffering because of a brutal dictatorship, not because they need more concessions to the regime.
The exchange took place during the hearing titled "Latin America after the fall of Maduro," held on April 16 in Washington, where Jackson had invited Salazar to collaborate in "ending the collective punishment by the U.S." towards Cuba and to seek a "diplomatic resolution towards normalization."
Salazar, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, directly rejected that narrative and challenged the congressman to an open debate before the full House.
"Let’s have an open debate in the full chamber about Cuba. I will bring facts, not fantasies. I welcome your perspective at any time," declared the legislator from the 27th District of Florida.
Jackson, the Democratic representative from Illinois, had visited Cuba from April first to sixth alongside fellow Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, marking the first documented in-person meeting of U.S. lawmakers with President Miguel Díaz-Canel since 2018.
After that trip, Jackson described the energy sanctions imposed by the Trump administration as "an act of war" and called for immediate bilateral negotiations.
In the hearing on April 16, Jackson argued that the Cuban people are on life support, not the government, citing power outages in hospitals and premature babies without electricity in incubators, and urged Salazar to stop debating about Castro to focus on joint solutions.
"I'm not in the resurrection business, so instead of debating Castro, I invite Congresswoman Salazar to work together to end the collective punishment by the U.S., to partner with the Cuban people and civil society groups, and to seek a diplomatic resolution towards normalization that benefits both Americans and Cubans," said Jackson.
Salazar responded by appreciating the tone of the exchange, but he made a clear point: "We must start with the truth."
The stance of the Cuban-American congresswoman is that the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration are the right tool to accelerate the collapse of the regime, in direct contrast to the Democratic narrative that these measures amount to a punishment for the Cuban people.
In the same hearing, Salazar stated that the communist regime in Cuba is on life support and that Trump just needs to "disconnect it," while Republican congressman Carlos A. Giménez, the only legislator born in Cuba, accused Jackson and Jayapal of hypocrisy for supporting a "repressive and brutal regime."
The debate between the two legislators reflects the growing tension in the U.S. Congress regarding policy towards Cuba, intensified since Trump signed the Executive Order 14380 in January 2026, which imposes tariffs on countries that sell oil to the island and declares Cuba an "unusual and extraordinary threat" due to its alignment with Russia and China.
Filed under: