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Factions argue Cuba trade embargo Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Where Arkansas rice producers see an economic windfall by liberalizing trade with Cuba, others see an unacceptable boost to the island nation's totalitarian regime. Advocates of a long-standing trade embargo against Cuba said Tuesday that state-owned enterprises in the Caribbean nation would reap the biggest benefits if the U.S. government makes regulations that would make it easier for American agriculture exports to enter the country. A U.S. International Trade Commission report in July said American rice sales to Cuba could grow between $14 million and $43 million without trade barriers. A bill in Congress would remove a requirement that the communist country to pay cash in advance for food and medicine. That regulation was put in place by the Bush administration in 2005. Easing trade rules means the United States loses a bargaining chip with a new government once the Fidel Castro era ends in Cuba, said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami. Suchlicki, a panelist at a Senate committee hearing on trade and travel restrictions, said American investment would only sustain communism by funding the government-owned agencies that control the economy. "The embargo is not the cause of Cuban suffering," Suchlicki said. "The cause of Cuba's suffering is that the system is failed. The real embargo is what Castro has on the Cuban people." Suchlicki and Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, assailed Cuba for human rights violations. The United States would send a dangerous signal to the world if it eased trade barriers without Cuban concessions, they said. In response, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and supporters of lifting the embargo pointed to trade relationships with China, Vietnam and other communist countries. "The government's policy is stuck in the past," said Baucus, Senate sponsor of a bill to further open agricultural trade. "It no longer makes sense for either Cubans or Americans. It undermines America's economic competitiveness. And it does not help promote our overall foreign policy goals." A blanket trade embargo was instituted after Fidel Castro took control of the country in the 1960s. Barriers on food and medicine were eased in 2000, but the 2005 rules curtailed much of the market growth for Arkansas farmers, in-state producers said. In 2005, Arkansas was the largest U.S. exporter to Cuba with $167 million annually, according to a Texas A&M University study. Last year, about a quarter of Cuba's rice imports were from the United States, totaling $39.5 million. The U.S. share of imports without restrictions would increase by 7 to 20 percent, according to the International Trade Commission study. Bill Reed, vice president for public affairs for Stuttgart-based Riceland Foods, told federal officials in May that trade restrictions cost the United States about 3,300 jobs and $150 million in exports. Arkansas lawmakers have endorsed easing of agriculture trade restrictions. Rep. Marion Berry, D-Gillett, visited Cuba in June in conjunction with that country's annual meeting with American agricultural producers. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., is a member of the committee that discussed the trade issue Tuesday, but she did not attend the meeting. Her spokeswoman said she was working behind the scenes on Farm Bill legislation currently being debated on the Senate floor. Proponents of Cuba trade said it makes sense financially, since the country's proximity to the United States blunts high fuel prices and shipping costs. They also point to other countries' investment in Cuba. European financing there this year was $1.632 billion, said Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell. "While we have significant relations on almost every level with communist countries 10,000 miles away such as China and Vietnam, we have almost no relations with the 11 million souls on an island 90 miles off our southern coast," Wilkerson said. |
