Missouri U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt thinks President Obama went to Cuba too soon.
"My concern about the president's visit to Cuba is that he's visiting Cuba at a time when you don't see the kind of individual freedom that the president, just a few months ago, said he was going to insist on before he ever, personally, reached out and spent time in Cuba," Blunt told reporters after a Jefferson City campaign event. "They were arresting people as he was landing, and they continued to do that in huge numbers.
"I think it's unfortunate that we didn't require Cuba to move further in the direction of democracy and freedom, before we reached out our hands."
Blunt said it's "too late for this president to make that happen, and I'm, frankly, not at all sure that it can happen as long as the Castros are still in control of Cuba - but I hope it happens sooner rather than later."
The Springfield Republican said the Obama administration also was wrong to open diplomatic channels with Cuba as long as its people don't have more freedom than they enjoy currently.
"We're not seeing people's freedom expanded," Blunt said. "In fact, we're seeing people's freedom being further squelched as more Americans are there.
"The Cuban government wants to see less criticism of everything they do - they don't want to see any criticism of anything they do."
Still, Blunt said, eventually Cuba might be a "good market" for Missouri and U.S. agriculture products, but "it's not a huge market. It never will be a huge market."