Donald Trump is fine with normalizing relations with Cuba, but he wishes the U.S. was better at negotiating. At Thursday’s debate, however, Trump struggled to articulate exactly what he would change if he were the president negotiating.
“What I want is I want a much better deal to be made,” Trump said. “Right now Cuba is making — as usual with our country, we don’t have people making good deals, we don’t have a clue.”
Trump said that the deal brokered with the Cuba would lead the U.S. to get “sued for $400 billion or $1 trillion.”
“We don’t want to get sued after the deal is made. I don’t agree with President Obama. I do agree something should take place. After 50 years, it’s enough time, folks. But we have to make a good deal and get rid of all the litigation that’s going to happen,” Trump said.
When asked if he would close or leave open the new embassy in Cuba, Trump responded: “I would probably have the embassy closed until a really good deal was made and struck by the United States.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), however, mocked Trump’s answer and had more specific ideas about what a “good deal” with Cuba looked like.
“First of all, the embassy, the the former consulate, it’s the same building. We can just go back to calling it the consulate. Secondly I don’t know where they’re going to sue us,” Rubio said.
Rubio outlined some elements of what he considered a better deal with Cuba.
“Cuba has free elections, Cuba stops putting people in jail for speaking out, it kicks out the Chinese listening station, it stops helping North Korea evade U.N. Sanctions, and they take the fugitives from justice, including the cop killer and send her back to the United States, that’s a good deal.”
