Florida Republican fears ‘greater ties’ between China and Cuba

Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez is sounding the alarms about China cultivating “greater ties” with Cuba after 17 Chinese nationals were recently apprehended in his district.

The Republican, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, said it was “concerning” that the migrants from China had been able to enter Key Largo – an island in the upper Florida Keys – by boat, according to authorities.

“That really kind of concerns me that now they’re trying to make their way in through the Keys — my part of the country,” he told the Daily Mail in an interview published Sunday.

“I understand that the Chinese are having more and more influence. More and more infrastructure projects more and more activity in our hemisphere, especially in in Cuba.”

Back in June, reports revealed that Cuba had granted China authority to build a surveillance facility on the island, located some 90 miles south of Florida.

That development followed the incident in which a high-altitude spy balloon from China floated across the US for about a week between late January into early February before being shot down off the Carolina coast.

There have allegedly been at least 100 surveillance snafus in recent years where military bases were breached by Chinese nationals, many of whom cast themselves as tourists, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.

“We’ve seen many, many Chinese nationals, saying they’re tourists and stuff and they’ve been photographing sensitive installations,” Gimenez added to the Daily Mail.

The congressman faulted the Biden administration for its border policies, which he ripped as “mind-blowing.”

“I’m proud to serve on the Armed Services Committee, Homeland Security Committee, and the new Select Committee on China and have requested additional information from all federal agencies involved,” Gimenez said in a statement following the news of the apprehensions in Key Largo last week.

“In Congress, I have fought the Biden Administration’s shortsighted border policies that have endangered our country and impacted our South Florida community.”

Last fiscal year, which ended at the start of this month, the US endured a record-shattering 3.2 million border apprehensions at the border, according to US Border Patrol.

Gimenez emerged as a prominent Republican voice in the 22-day-long GOP speakership melee that left the House of Representatives in paralysis.

He backed former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and voted for him repeatedly, before later falling in line and backing now-Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)

Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco next month, an official told the Associated Press.

An exact date for when the meet will take place has not been announced.

Biden and Xi last met in November 2022 during the sidelines of the Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

Xi last set foot on US soil in 2017 when he was invited to then-President Donald Trump’s lavish Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The Biden administration has made a series of diplomatic overtures to Beijing in a bid to help thaw out icy relations with the Asian superpower.