President Trump is expected this Friday to reverse the Obama administration's policy of opening up political and economic relations with Cuba. Thanks in part to the advocacy of Florida's Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, America will likely return to a policy that allows us to exert our political, moral, and economic strength to push for freedom and human rights in an authoritarian regime just a hundred miles from America's shores.

It has already been over half a year since Fidel Castro passed away at age 90 as a seemingly out-of-place historical icon, with a peace that few of his victims knew. Just like when Venezuela's Hugo Chavez passed away in 2013 or North Korea's Kim Jong-Il in 2011, there was briefly a flash of hope that this would be an opportunity for the repressive police state and command economy to finally unravel itself.

Yet Cuba continues to remain an authoritarian regime that has little room for freedom of any kind, whether political, economic, religious, or otherwise. For America to reward a regime that has steadfastly refused to move in the direction of freedom with sudden political and economic legitimacy would be a surrender of the moral struggle we've waged with Cuba for the past half-century.

Proponents of President Obama's Cuba-opening policy cite precedent in how America has regularly established relations with authoritarian regimes, including Communist ones such as China and Vietnam and otherwise. Proponents further cite the theory that increased interrelation pushes authoritarian nations to slowly edge towards human rights and international cooperation.

Yet it would be difficult to back up such claims with historical examples. Nations such as Vietnam and China are deeply immersed in the world economic system, yet their human rights abuses continue just as frequently as before. In fact, often our ability to condemn such abuses becomes limited because of how deep our economic interrelation now is with them.

With no change in human rights in Cuba, American dollars will be spent funding authoritarian repression and a regime that has historically supported insurrectionism across Latin America and the world against America's interests. That tarnishes America's moral authority in exchange for a small economic gain.

We see in a nation like Venezuela how the socialist regime has been able to survive in large part because of foreign financing and aid. While Cuba continues to slog on economically, nonetheless by establishing economic relations with the regime it is almost certain it will never collapse economically of its own accord. In a terrible irony, America would be indirectly subsidizing socialist repression.

Lastly, while America has in the past opened up to nations such as China and Yugoslavia, those decisions were based significantly due to incredible geopolitical concerns at the time due to the Cold War and the Soviet Union's threat. There is no current excruciating geopolitical situation that demands that we must make the difficult decision of compromising our commitment to freedom and opening up to Cuba.

Furthermore, the same argument for establishing relations with Cuba could very well be applied to a nation like North Korea. North Korea differs from Cuba by degree, not by type. North Korea's repression reaches a level beyond even the tastes of the Cuban regime, but nonetheless once a rationale is embraced that so easily puts aside our commitment to human dignity, that is the natural end.

America has stood firmly on the side of freedom for the Cuban people for over half a century. Our strong stand against Cuba's regime has been undoubtedly a bulwark in preventing socialist repression from spreading across South America, as was a real concern during the Cold War.

President Trump and Senator Rubio are wise and right in continuing to push the cause of liberty in Cuba. While it may be a long time before the Cuban people see freedom, we cannot abandon their cause so easily.

Erich Reimer is a Republican activist and freelance writer.

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Trump's expected reversal on Cuba is a victory for freedom - Washington Examiner