MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Donald Trump will have to “answer some questions” about a Newsweek story reporting that a Trump-owned company allegedly violated the United States’ trade embargo with Cuba in the late 1990s.
“This is something they’re gonna have to give a response to. I mean, it was a violation of American law, if that’s how it happened,” Rubio said on the ESPN/ABC Capital Games podcast.
The report claims the Trump-owned company secretly conducted business on the island under Fidel Castro’s communist regime.
According to Newsweek, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts paid a consulting firm to help the company in the event that the U.S. loosened trade restrictions. The consulting firm and Trump company later attempted to cover up the transaction by making it look like legal spending for a charity.
Rubio, a former presidential candidate, insisted he would reserve judgment until he had learned all the facts.
“I hope the Trump campaign is gonna come forward and answer some questions about this because if what the article says is true — and I’m not saying that it is, we don’t know with a hundred percent certainty — I’d be deeply concerned about it, I would,” he said.
Rubio has long been a strong supporter of the current embargo with Cuba. He endorsed Trump in late May, after a competitive primary that saw Trump win by a landslide in Rubio’s home state.
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.