US Agribusiness Executives Criticize US Government Restrictions, Sign Deals with Cuba
By Juan Jacomino,  May 30, 2007

For three days this week, the sprawling Convention Center in Havana catered to an unusual crowd. Some 260 US business representatives, and five members of the US Congress, were in town, attending commercial talks.

Agribusiness executives, food exporters and farm groups from 25 US states held meetings with Cuban companies in a round of talks that Cuba indicated could end up with some 150 million dollars worth of contracts for the US companies.

The talks are happening under the dark clouds of a nearly 50-year old US economic and financial embargo that Cuba rightly denounces as a blockade, a suffocating economic circle.

And it isn’t exactly trade, for Cuba can only buy from the US; no Cuban products are shipped back on the empty ships that for more than five years now have been bringing US food items to Cuba, under an exception of that embargo.

US sales to Cuba are allowed on a cash-only basis, and payments have to be made in advance, through third country banks.

Kirby Jones, a key promoter of the encounter and head of the Washington-based consultancy group Alamar Associates, said these and other restrictions on the part of the US government complicate the sales.

“We have a situation where it is legal to trade; Congress passed it in 2000, and the president of the United States signed it, and it became the law of the land to sell food and agricultural products to Cuba. And yet, we have a situation where in practical terms, the executive branch is making the implementation of that law in the land as difficult as it possibly can be,” noted Kirby Jones. “So we are in a situation where we are sort of stuck. So, what are we going to do about it, we Americans? Because it is our problem…”

Figures released by ALIMPORT, the Cuba’s chief food importing company, show that since 2001, the island has spent more than $1.5 billion on American farm products, including onerous transportation, insurance and financing costs. ALIMPORT chief executive officer, Pedro Alvarez, said that figure could have been easily doubled were it not for the US government restrictions.

Alvarez said Cuba, which had pledged to buy some 150 million dollars worth of US agricultural products during this round, in a few hours the first day, had already agreed to substantial purchasing.

“In the few hours that have elapsed—said Alvarez—Cuba has already agreed to buy 66 thousand tons of soy products; 150 thousand tons of corn; 12,600 tons of chicken, and others, for a total value of over 68 thousand dollars, in just the few hours that have passed.”

The Cuban food importing executive also noted that if the US government allowed Americans to travel to Cuba as tourists, the island would have more US currency with which to buy even more US products.

One after the other, US agricultural executives lashed out at the nearly 50 year-old policies that prevent traveling and doing business with Cuba.

Marvin Lehrer, of the USA Rice Federation, said his organization has been a major force in Washington to bring about changes in the US government policies towards trade with Cuba. “We ask our Congress to lift the trade and travel restrictions. By lifting these restrictions alone, it would allow Cuba the ability to generate more foreign exchange in order so they may buy more food products for their own people and for the millions of tourists that would surely be arriving in Cuba from the United States,” Lehrer told the gathering.

The sessions of this commercial gathering in Cuba of US food suppliers were attended by five members of the US congress, including Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn, chairwoman of the House agricultural appropriations subcommittee; Jack Kingston, R-Ga.; Marion Berry, D-Ark.; Rodney Alexander, R-La.; and Bob Etheridge, D-N.C.

DeLauro said the US legislators were in Cuba to learn and to seek a dialog.

“We are a diverse group, not only a geographically diverse group but we also have come from different perspectives around the issue of an embargo on Cuba; some who have been opposed to that embargo, some who have supported it,” said DeLauro. “We wanted to come to Cuba to engage in a conversation and a dialog, essentially around agricultural issues and tourists but other areas as well.”

The US-Cuba commercial talks ended on Wednesday, with the signing of contracts worth 118 million dollars and more agreements to follow later during the week.