President Barack Obama may have opened the door for Americans to travel to Cuba, but some Florida lawmakers want to slam that door shut.
It's a historic change in the way the United States looks at Cuba, a Communist island just 90 miles off Florida's coast but 50 years removed from normal diplomatic relations.
With a new White House policy, Americans don't need a permit to travel to Cuba. Now airlines can fly back and forth on a regular basis and U.S. companies can invest in Cuban businesses.
But leading Republican state lawmakers call the policy a giveaway to a terrorist regime. On Thursday, a key Florida Senate committee approved a bill to condemn President Obama's new diplomatic dialogue with Havana.
"To unilaterally cave in and provide that cash-starved dictatorship with cash so they can continue to support their oppressive apparatus that spies on its own people, that jails anyone who says a word of criticism about the government, that's the failed policy," Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said. "That's the policy that will fail, and when you extend your hand to a dictator, what you get is a slap in the face."
The Cuban-American lawmakers behind the bill say that prediction is grounded in history. Many of them come from families forced off the island after Fidel Castro came to power. Now his brother Raul is in charge, and more money could mean a tighter grip on power.
The lawmakers warn that cash could even help fund terror plots against dissidents in Florida. It's an ominous-sounding future that's at odds with the future seen by President Obama.
"That chips away at this hermetically-sealed society and I believe offers the best prospect, then, of leading to greater freedom," Obama has said.
The bill may have a lot of emotional appeal, but it doesn't appear to have any teeth. Foreign policy is handled by the federal government, not the states, even though no state is bound to be more affected by the United States' changing relationship with Cuba than Florida.
The legislation to condemn the outreach to Cuba is expected to pass the state House and Senate later in the legislative session. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans.