CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) - Democrat Christopher Dodd ...
... pledged Saturday that as president ...
... he would end a decades-old trade embargo with Cuba and lift travel restrictions to the communist island.
| Looking to do well in the Florida non-primary, is he? |
The Connecticut senator also said he would open an embassy in Havana and shut down the 17-year-old TV Marti, a U.S. government-run station that broadcasts to Cuba. ``Other than the war in Iraq, no other American policy is more broadly unpopular internationally,'' Dodd said of American policy toward Cuba.
| Unpopular doesn't equate to 'wrong', unless you're a Democrat. |
Dodd called the policy an ``abject failure.'' As president, he said he would seek a repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which strengthened the U.S. embargo against Cuba. He also said taxpayers should not spend millions of dollars annually on TV Marti, which virtually no one in Cuba sees, and that he would reform its companion, Radio Marti.
Dodd sidestepped a question on whether he would meet leaders like Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez if elected. ``Presidents don't run around and meet with people automatically,'' Dodd said, without directly answering the question.
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