Republican Senator Jeff Flake met this week with Díaz-Canel

HAVANA – Republican Senator Jeff Flake, a proponent for the improvement of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, ended his stay in the Cuban capital earlier this week exchanging views with Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, president of the Councils of State and Ministers.

The meeting was the first publicly held by Cuba’s new president with a member of Congress and U.S. policy leader.

Flake, a senator from Arizona known for his stance in favor of the end of tensions between the U.S. and Cuba and a critic of President Donald Trump, during the meeting told Díaz-Canel that there is no evidence of Cuban participation in the well-known case of acoustic warfare that has affected U.S. diplomats and Canadian delegation staff members. He also said, during a press conference in Havana’s Meliá Cohiba Hotel, that his conversation with Díaz-Canel was both useful and necessary. 

In a previous meeting, Flake met with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Flake has been the main promoter of a bill that proposes the elimination of restrictions on travel by Americans to Cuba, which currently has the support of another 54 senators, that is, more than half of the members of the Senate.”

Flake and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who was part of the visiting delegation, as well as the Trump administration’s top diplomat in Cuba, Philip Goldberg, met on Monday with the new Cuban president. Flake and Schmidt, who is now a board member at Google parent Alphabet Inc, were on a 24-hour visit to discuss improving the island’s internet. They also met with the foreign minister and Communications Ministry officials.