The Hill is reporting that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has harshly criticized President Obama for agreeing to exchange Cuban spies for an American imprisoned in Cuba, calling his foreign policy “naïve” and “truly counterproductive for the future of democracy in the region.”
“All of these tyrants around the world know that the U.S. can be had, that it’s a pretty easy deal,” he said on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom.”
“At minimum, Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we’ve had as president since at least Jimmy Carter, and maybe in the modern history of the country.”
Those sentiments came on top of a statement released by Rubio’s office in which he asserted that “America will be less safe as a result of the president’s change in policy.”
Rubio’s parents fled Cuba in the 1950s, as Fidel Castro rose to power and started clamping down on political opponents. The senator said that, while he’s happy American aid worker Alan Gross will return to his family, he believes that the move “puts a price on every American abroad.”
“Governments now know that, if they can take an American hostage, they can get very significant concessions from the United States,” he said.
“It’s par for the course with an administration that is constantly giving away unilateral concessions, whether it’s Iran or, in this case Cuba, in exchange for nothing.”