Is the End of Cuban Embargo Near?

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Is the End of Cuban Embargo Near?
by James Hall

"It makes no sense for us to buy rice from Asia when we could buy it from the United States. It makes no sense to buy machinery from Europe if we can buy it from the United States."
- Raul de la Nuez, Cuba's foreign trade minister.

Don't be surprised if the thirty-eight year old embargo of Cuba by the United States is soon relaxed - or even ends sometime after the November elections. Despite the distraction of the Elian Gonzalez case, Castro and Americans both inside and outside of the government have been exchanging quiet overtures for weeks. Legislation recently introduced in Congress would permit the importation of food and medicine to Cuba. What's interesting is that the hardest push for the end of the embargo is coming not from Democrats or the Clinton administration, but from Republican legislators and their allies in the business and farm communities.

The political battle over the return of young Elian Gonzalez may have served as a catalyst for the change, since it showed the weakness of the politically powerful Cuban-American lobby when pitted against the opinions of the majority of Americans. Another catalyst for change is the vote in the US Congress for permanent normal trade relations with the People's Republic of China, an act that has businessmen and farmers clamoring for the opening of more markets - like Cuba's.

Prior to 1996 Castro and the Clinton administration had been working towards a reduction of the embargo when two private planes piloted by Cuban exiles were shot down outside Cuban airspace by the Cuban Air Force. The incident inflamed anti-Castro passions and caused additional sanctions to be raised against Cuba and European businesses doing business on confiscated American property.

But now, thanks to Elian and the Chinese, there's pressure from a variety of sources to drop the embargo. Joining the Clinton administration in the effort to improve relations is none other than the US Chamber of Commerce, which recently sent its executive vice president to Cuba to discuss the issue of reparations for the 1.8 billion dollars worth of US corporate property expropriated by the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Castro agreed in principle to discuss reparations, and that has awakened the interest of US business. Major corporations like the Ford Motor Company, Boise Cascade, and ITT Corporation owned substantial assets in Cuba that could be worth as much as 13 billion dollars today. That gives them a vested interest in coming to an agreement with the Cubans.

Last week Cuba entertained more American corporations, including Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of New York president William Wilson and 50 other businessmen in Havana, including representatives from United Air Lines, Caterpillar Americas Col., the Port of Houston Authority, Wrigley Jr. Co., and the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company for a two day "US-Cuba Business Summit" organized by an Italian investment services company and a Washington-based consulting firm. Increasingly, US business is traveling to Havana to make contacts in preparation for the end of the embargo.

Cuba is also tempting US agricultural interests with the promise of imports. Delegations of US rice and wheat farmers and their legislators recently visited Cuba and were told that Cuba would be more than happy to import food from the US if the embargo was lifted. Cuba imported a million tons of wheat and 300,00 tons of rice from France last year. That has whetted the appetites of farmers and their Republican congressmen, who promptly placed a rider to an agriculture bill that would make it possible to permit the exporting of food and medicine to Cuba. At stake is a billion dollars worth of business for farmers.

An additional pressure is the attempt by the Organization of American States to set up a hemispheric free trade zone. Many Latin American nations would like to include Cuba in such a zone. The tide of free trade activism in the US and the Americas undoubtedly favors the end of the embargo by questioning its political basis.

Opposing the moves to lift the embargo are the House and Senate Republican leadership and legislators from Florida and New Jersey who have large local Cuban-American populations. However, the same arguments that these leaders have made for normal trade relations with China now work against them with Cuba. The Cuban-American lobby still exerts a powerful influence, but are weakened by the Gonzalez affair. And now it must compete with powerful business and farm interests who are strong with the very Republican legislators who have been Cuba's harshest critics and opponents.

So look for something to happen on the embargo front soon, most likely a gradual opening for the exporting of American food and medicine, to be followed by reparation talks on behalf of American business interests. After the November elections, when the Cuban-American lobby's influence wanes, the US Congress may be bold enough to end the longest running US embargo ever, and perhaps write the Cold War's final chapter.