Over the weekend, an unidentified Biden administration official said China has been operating a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019, part of a global effort by Beijing to upgrade its intelligence capabilities. On Sunday, the White House confirmed the existence of the Chinese spy base after The Wall Street Journal reported China and Cuba had reached an agreement to build an electronic eavesdropping station on the island.
The Journal reported that China planned to pay a cash-strapped Cuba billions of dollars as part of the negotiations. The White House initially called the WSJ report inaccurate.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio recently appeared on "Fox & Friends" and discussed the initial reaction from the White House.
"It's one thing for them to go on and say we're not going to discuss intelligence matters – and it is another thing to lie to people about it. And they come out 48 hours later," he noted. "By the way, this was a leak, right? Somebody in the intelligence community leaked this to the Wall Street Journal – and now we know about it."
The Florida Republican disputes the claim from the White House that the Biden administration inherited this problem from the Trump administration.
"The Chinese today and over the last three or four years have put themselves in a position to do from Cuba what they were not able to do when Donald Trump was in the presidency. That's just a fact!" he exclaimed.
"This is part of [the administration's] pattern: they did not inherit the problem we're facing today – this is a problem that grew and metastasized in Cuba and other parts of the world over the last three years."
Rubio argued that the Biden White House has the wrong priorities. "In every part of the world, the Chinese are focused on overtaking us. We, on the other hand, are focused on some the crazy social agendas people are pushing on this country. These people are eating our lunch."
Beijing says the allegations about it using Cuba as a spying base are false, accusing the U.S. government of releasing inconsistent information.
