America First Policy Institute Center for American Security Vice Chairman Fred Fleitz told Newsmax on Friday that President Joe Biden's "weakness" has "emboldened" China to build a spy base in Cuba, just 100 miles away from the United States.
"One has to wonder what China was buying with the $10 million it paid to the Biden family with the tens of millions it gave to the Penn Biden Center, where Joe Biden was being paid $900,000 a year to do nothing after he left the vice presidency," Fleitz said during "The Chris Salcedo Show." "Now we see this incredible weakness by Biden, which I think has emboldened China and Cuba to build a spy base, a military base in Cuba."
The Wall Street Journal reported on June 8 that China and Cuba reached a "secret agreement" for China to build an eavesdropping facility on the communist-controlled island, just 100 miles from the coast of Florida.
"We are deeply disturbed by reports that Havana and Beijing are working together to target the United States and our people," the Journal reported Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., the chairman of the panel, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the vice chairman, as saying in a statement to the news outlet at the time.
According to the report, U.S. officials told the publication that the facility would be able to monitor a "range of communications," that could include emails, satellite, and phone calls.
One official told the Associated Press June 11 that the "spy base" has been operating since 2019, during the administration of former President Donald Trump, a notion that Fleitz said other officials disregard.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who joined Fleitz on the program, said allowing the base is not only reminiscent of the 1960s Cuban missile crisis, which brought the world dangerously close to nuclear war, but it also goes against the now-centuries old Monroe Doctrine from 1923 that requires foreign nations to view the "western hemisphere as a United States sphere of interest."
"For goodness' sake, are we going to permit foreign troops to be housed and trained within the Western Hemisphere?" Shaffer said. "That's something that I think we have to examine. This is bad."
Both panelists said that it appears that Biden and his family are obligated to China through their business dealings back when he was vice president.
"So, it's very clear that the Chinese bought something. What did they buy?" Shaffer said. "They're buying this unfettered access to Cuba. More importantly, unfettered establishment of what we call persistent surveillance, which their satellites lack."
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