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Agriculture Left Out Of Cuba Trade Policy

published: April 15th 2009
by: Gary Truitt
source: Hoosier Today

This week President Obama reversed a travel and trade policy that has been in place for decades. Travel and financial restrictions on Cuba have been relaxed allowing Americans to travel, send money, and send humanitarian aid to the island nation. US communications companies have also been allowed to begin doing business in Cuba. But, American agriculture continues to be shut out. The Obama ruling does not lift restrictions that make it very difficult to sell agricultural exports to the communist nation.

Dean Kleckner, with Truth About Trade, told HAT this change in US policy toward Cuba is encouraging, and he hopes the ag trade restrictions will soon be lifted, “I am hopeful, but I am not going to hold my breath because there is politics in this.” He noted that the strong Cuban community in the politically important state of Florida guided the Bush policy on Cuba and would likely have the same effect on the Obama administration.

Senator Lugar and a number of Farm State Lawmakers have been working for years to try to improve farm exports to Cuba. Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged Obama last month to begin direct talks with the Cuban government and end US opposition to the island nation’s membership in the Organization of American States. “The U.S. economic embargo against Cuba undermines the U.S.’s broader security and political interests in the Western Hemisphere,” Lugar said in a March 30 letter to Obama.

The food embargo was put in place in the 1960s as a way to to try to depose Fidel Castro. Kleckner said, not surprisingly, the policy has not worked, “In fact I do not know of an embargo that ever really worked.”

Just 90 miles of the US mainland, Cuba could be a significant market for US food exports at a time when more exports are needed, “We need to export anywhere in the world we can, and anything that hampers that should be changed,” Kleckner said. He cited milk is a perfect example. In Cuba milk is rationed but US dairy farmers are suffering from low prices because of an oversupply of milk. Shipping more milk to Cuba would be an economic stimulus for the US dairy industry.

Obama ordered the policy changes as he prepares to meet with Latin American leaders at a hemispheric summit later this week. He also took the action amid pressure from some U.S. lawmakers, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, to do more to normalize commercial trade and diplomatic relations with Cuba. “This is a good first step, but we can and should do more,” Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said yesterday in a statement. “I urge the Pesident to relax restrictions on the sale of U.S. agriculture products to Cuba. We need to make it easier for America’s farmers and ranchers to sell their high-quality products.” Latin American leaders are likely to pressure Obama at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to end the trade embargo. Cuba is the only country in the region excluded from the gathering of 34 nations. Although Latin American leaders are split on many issues, they agree that Obama should lift the embargo.