Rothman And Havana - This Might Not Be The Guy We Want Running The Pennsylvania GOP

Greg Rothman is a Pennsylvania State Senator. He also wants to be the next Chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. Rothman has traveled to Cuba at least a dozen times by his own admission. He says he has gone to play baseball as part of his involvement in something called the Engage Cuba Coalition, which seeks to “normalize” relations between the United States and the Communist government of Cuba. Rothman is listed on a 2018 Engage Cuba press release as a founding member of something called the Engage Cuba Pennsylvania State Council.

So, what exactly is Engage Cuba and who is behind it?

Engage Cuba began back under the Obama administration to push for the end of the American embargo on Cuba and the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. When Donald Trump became President in 2016 and moved quickly to roll back Obama’s pro-Havana policies, Engage Cuba took the lead in opposing Donald Trump and standing with the Communist government in Cuba. Key Democratic political figures like Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Durbin, Tom Udall, Patty Murray, and Jeff Merkley joined Engage Cuba in these efforts.

When Joe Biden came to office Engage Cuba joined a host of other groups in calling on him to pick up where Obama had left off and engage with the totalitarian government in Havana. Other notable groups signing on to the letter making that demand were:

Code Pink – a radical leftist organization that among other things thinks we need a closer relationship with North Korea.

Women Against Military Madness – a radical leftist organization that wants the United States to give up its military bases abroad and end its support of Israel.

Oxfam America – a virulently anti-Trump group that advocates for left-of-center climate policies, immigration policies, and “global citizenship.”

What does all that mean? Given recent cases in which we have seen officials at the state level compromised by hostile foreign powers, it obviously raises some fundamental questions about Rothman’s association with the Cubans. Tim Walz’s decades-long involvement with Communist China even comes to mind.

Still, the available evidence does not seem substantial enough to begin making claims that somehow Rothman has been working for the Cubans all this time. Rather, what it suggests is something a lot more likely but almost as troubling. It suggests that a hostile Communist power 90 miles from our shores which oppresses its citizens and works overtime against us around the globe managed to convince Rothman that he was doing the right thing by serving their interests and standing up for them against our own national government.

It suggests Havana has used Rothman.

That doesn’t make Rothman a traitor by any stretch of the imagination. It does suggest this might not be the guy that we want leading the Pennsylvania GOP at this moment in time.