Pelosi in Cuba: 'Great enthusiasm' in Congress to end embargo The House minority leader said during a visit to the island nation that lawmakers should act quickly.

Congress should work quickly to end the decades-old trade embargo against Cuba, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said during a visit to the island nation.

“I do believe that there is strong bipartisan support in the Congress of the United States to lift the embargo,” the California Democrat said during a news conference Thursday in Havana, according to a transcript made available Friday morning. “I also think that it would be important for us to move as quickly as possible … to move in a positive way to remove Cuba from the list of concerned states.”


Pelosi has been in Havana since Tuesday while leading the first official House delegation to the country since President Barack Obama announced in December that he wanted to normalize relations with the Castro regime. Pelosi met with Cuban leaders to discuss efforts Congress could take to loosen the trade embargo.

”I’m not saying there’s unanimity – but I’m saying there’s great enthusiasm in a very strong, bipartisan way, as you will see from other visitors of members of Congress,” she said.

The delegation includes Reps. Eliot Engel, Steve Israel and Nydia Velázquez of New York, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Anna Eshoo of California and David Cicilline of Rhode Island. No Republican joined the delegation.

While in Cuba, Pelosi and the other Democratic lawmakers met with Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla; the director of U.S. affairs at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Josefina Vidal; and the vice president of the National Assembly, Ana Maria Mari Machado.

The delegation also met with Miguel Díaz-Canel, the country’s vice president and presumed heir-apparent for Raul Castro.

The lawmakers gave few specifics on their meetings with the Cuban officials, but Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said the Democrats raised the issue of human rights during their talks. Proponents of normalizing relations with the Castro government have long argued that easing the embargo would help open Cuba to greater scrutiny and reform of their human rights abuses.

“I think it is our view that the best way to promote human rights is to accelerate this new process, to establish a formal embassy in Havana and to establish a formal Cuban embassy in Washington, D.C., and have our embassy officials talk directly with the Cuban government and same thing in Washington; Cuban officials talking directly to our government,” McGovern said. “The best way to advance a cause of human rights is to end a policy which has been a miserable failure for over 50 years.“

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