Hillary Clinton to ask for lifting of embargo on Cuba

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton this week will ask Congress to lift the embargo on Cuba during a scheduled visit to South Florida, where she will participate in two public events, her campaign office announced Wednesday in a communique.

The former secretary of state on Friday will urge the Republicans to abandon the “failed policies of the past” during a speech at Florida International University in Miami, where the country’s largest Cuban community lives.

Clinton will also ask for support for the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba announced last December by the governments of Barack Obama and Raul Castro, a policy that led the two nations to reopen their embassies in each other’s capitals on July 20.

Earlier on Friday, Clinton will take part in a forum in Fort Lauderdale with Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who has opposed reestablishing relations with Cuba.

Bush said on Wednesday that “President Obama’s concessions to Castro have not resulted in more democracy or freedom for the Cuban people,” and he added that Clinton’s support for lifting the embargo is contrary to her past rejection of easing “restrictions with Cuba.”

“Havana’s repression of its citizens has continued despite the Obama administration’s unilateral concessions, and in fact 75 democracy activists were arrested just last weekend,” Bush said in a communique.

Both candidates will participate on Friday in the forum of the National Urban League, a civil rights organization.

This week, Reps. Tom Emmer (RMinn.) and Kathy Castor (DFla.) presented a bill to end the economic embargo on Cuba that has been in place for 53 years and to allow U.S. companies to trade freely with the communist island.