“The House of Representatives approved my bill on the Department of State and Foreign Operations that promotes freedom in our hemisphere,” Florida Republican Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart wrote in his X profile after said institution approved this bill. Friday the State Appropriations, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Act of 2025, which proposes, among other things, grant $35 million “to promote democracy in Cuba.”
The law, which was passed with 212 votes in favor and 200 against, “represents a fundamental step towards “Ensuring Americans are safer at home and abroad”said Republican Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Diaz-Balart, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Related Programs of the State Department, noted that “the legislation upholds key U.S. national security priorities by supporting allies like Israel and Taiwan and countering adversaries such as communist China, the terrorist states of Iran and Cuba and terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”
The law approved by Congress, and which now faces discussion in the Senate, “prohibits funding for countries and organizations that continue to benefit from the trafficking of Cuban doctors”Diaz-Balart reported in X.
The law also “instructs the Secretary of State to deny entry visa to the USA to any government official and organizations involved in the exploitation of Cuban doctors,” explained the Cuban-American.
In addition, Congress approved, through this law, “to prohibit financing for prevent the elimination of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism“.
“The Fiscal Year 2025 State Funding and Foreign Operations Bill promotes global freedom, expresses strong solidarity with our allies and stands firm against the evil forces that undermine the US national security“, Diaz-Balart concluded.
Before Congress approved this project, its main guarantor, Díaz-Balart, stated that “also limits the attempts by the Biden Administration to promote commitment to so-called entrepreneurs in Cuba’s closed communist economy. Let me be clear: the only truly independent entrepreneurs in Cuba are in prison.”
“In the history of the world, helping to finance companies and investments in communist and socialist dictatorships has only strengthened those dictatorships. The people have never benefited from it. The people have not achieved their freedom when dictatorships are strengthened through financing. In the history of this world, that has never worked,” he questioned in April.
At the same time, the congressman pointed out that “the bill increases support for freedom and democracy of the people of Cuba by providing $35 million for democracy financing and $35 million for the Cuba Broadcasting Office.”
Recently, in April, Díaz-Balart expressed this Friday his intention to work for the restoration of the Shelter Program for Cuban Medical Professionals (“Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program”, as it is known by its name in English), which was eliminated by former President Barack Obama in 2017.
