Though President Barack Obama is limited in what he can do in normalizing U.S.
relations with Cuba, the cultural and other exchanges he can facilitate will eventually lead to more civil liberties for Cuban citizens, Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News on Wednesday.
"More and more people in Cuba, just as happened under Richard Nixon with Russia, with the old Soviet Union, will begin to experience the benefits of free enterprise and the physical goods of the Western world," Napolitano said on
Fox News Channel’s "Shepard Smith Reporting."
"Where economic freedom comes, even when it comes slowly, civil liberties are soon to follow," he said.
Sen.
Marco Rubio, whose family is Cuban, blasted the move at normalized relations with the communist Castro regime. Napolitano said many of Rubio's South Florida constituents agree with his arguments.
Napolitano also noted that Rubio's family is among those who had hundreds of millions of dollars of property and wealth stolen by the Cuban government after Fidel Castro took control in 1959.
"Is the Castro regime going to return that? The president isn't addressing that," Napolitano said. "That might become an issue for the courts to resolve at some time in the future. But each time you enhance freedom — unless there's a war — you do it in baby steps. This is a series of baby steps that seemed inconceivable as recently as a year ago."