'President' Christie says he wouldn't trade with Cuba over harboring of N.J. cop killer Chesimard

By Claude Brodesser-Akner | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com 

DES MOINES — Gov. Chris Christie says that if he were president, he would not allow trade with Cuba because the island nation still harbors New Jersey fugitive from justice JoAnne Chesimard.

Christie also generally criticized President Obama's outreach to Cuba, saying that "the President "doesn't know how to negotiate," insisting, "you don't give away the idea of trade with America for nothing.

Now known as Assata Shakur, Chesimard was convicted in the execution-style murder of a New Jersey State Trooper in 1973. She later broke out of jail and escaped to Cuba, where she's remained ever since. In subsequent years, the Cuban government employeed Chesimard as an anti-American propaganda icon. It has been adamant that she will not be returned to the U.S., as recently as last week.

"I have real concerns about where we are with Cuba right now, and let me tell you why," Christie said at the Iowa Agricultural Summit. "For the last 40 years, they've been paying her. She one of the most wanted domestic terrorists, in the top 10 for the FBI."

Christie insisted that the U.S. ought not grant trading right to "a nation that's promoting someone who's a cop-killer...If they're going to continue to keep murdering-fugitives, and paying them, while the family here in New Jersey continues to miss their father? I have a problem with that."

Convicted in the execution-style shooting of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, Chesimard escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba, where she became something of a national celebrity.

Last December, President Obama announced he would take executive action to "begin to normalize relations" with Cuba that have been severed since January 1961. The nation has been under a trade embargo with the U.S. since October 1960.

Christie said that if elected president, he would ask Congress for "trade promotion authority," the temporary and sometimes controversial power to fast track trade between nations last granted to the President by Congress in 2007. Obama began seeking renewal of the authority in 2012.

Almost immediately, Obama had drawn criticism from both GOP and Democratic leaders over his move to normalize relations, including then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who said normalization "vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government," with respect to its well-documented human rights violations and persecution of political dissidents.