Food and agricultural trade from U.S. to Cuba soars / Chicago Tribune
freecubanow
Knight Ridder - Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Chicago Tribune
By Gary Marx
HAVANA _ One year after a historic U.S. agricultural trade fair in
Havana, U.S. food and agricultural sales to Cuba are soaring even as
relations between the two countries are at their lowest point in
years.
Archer Daniels Midland Co., the Decatur, Ill.-based food giant, along
with dozens of other U.S. companies, have sold more than $125 million
in wheat, rice, poultry and other products to Cuba in the first six
months of 2003, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
That compares to $138.6 million for all of 2002, according to the
council.
Diplomats and experts said Cuban officials are increasing their
purchases of U.S. products because shipping and other costs are far
cheaper for American goods than those from Europe, Asia and other
distant regions.
But Cuban officials also are trying to boost U.S. agricultural trade _
which several years ago was exempted under the decades-old U.S.
economic embargo against the Caribbean island _ as a way to build
pressure in the United States to further ease longstanding economic
sanctions, experts said.
Last week, Cuban officials signed a contract in Havana to purchase $8
million worth of corn and soy from an Iowa-based farm cooperative. The
next day, Cuba signed another contract to purchase 250 cattle from a
Florida company.
"It's an attempt to undermine the embargo," said Jaime Suchlicki, a
Cuba expert at the University of Miami. "There is a political
motivation as well as an economic motivation."
Many U.S. business executives say they are eager to increase sales to
Cuba _ a relatively modest market with 11 million people _ at a time
of stagnant economic growth in the United States and tight markets
overseas.
They argue that constructive engagement and free trade are the most
effective ways to improve the political climate in Cuba even in the
wake of the arrest and sentencing this year of 75 Cuban dissidents.
"We are always concerned when there is a lack of freedom," said Tony
DeLio, vice president for marketing and public relations at Archer
Daniels Midland. "But as a company, our ability to affect that, and
where we can help bring about change, is through trade."
Others are blunt about the separation of business and politics.
"We've faced tough economic times and we can't leave any money on the
table," said David Radlo, a Massachusetts businessman who has sold
about $2 million worth of eggs to Cuba since last year.
"We'll leave political issues to the politicians. I'm just going to
continue doing business," he said.
John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba trade council, said he knows
of no U.S. companies that have severed trade ties to Cuba because of
the recent dissident crackdown.
But he said fewer U.S. political and business leaders have visited
Cuba this year. He said several major companies that had planned to
enter the Cuban market "postponed their engagement indefinitely" after
the mass arrests.
At last week's signing ceremonies, Pedro Alvarez, a top Cuban trade
official, said U.S. agricultural sales in 2003 could reach $320
million, a figure that includes transportation, insurance and other
costs.
If the embargo is lifted, U.S. merchants could quickly capture more
than 60 percent of the $1 billion Cuba spends annually on agricultural
and food imports, he said.
Alvarez said increased trade would inevitably improve relations
between the two countries, although he said nothing about whether it
would create pressures to ease Cuba's crackdown on dissent or alter
its one-party political system.
"Trade and travel will benefit peoples and communities and will not
hurt anybody," said Alvarez, chairman of the Cuban import agency
Alimport. "It will create employment, and people-to-people contacts
nurture friendships."
Diplomats and experts said Cuba's use of trade as a political weapon
comes at a time when the island nation has few diplomatic cards to
play and is facing a prolonged economic crisis.
Tourism, the nation's most important source of hard currency, has
increased this year but remains volatile. Sugar, once Cuba's most
important industry, is in a severe and perhaps terminal decline.
For most Cubans, the struggle to put food on the table and make ends
meet remains paramount.
The recent crackdown on dissidents has compounded the economic
problems facing Cuban President Fidel Castro. Stung by European
criticism, Castro withdrew Cuba's application to a European
preferential trade pact that could have meant hundreds of millions of
dollars in commercial benefits and assistance.
Castro also rejected most future economic assistance from the European
Union, which totaled more than $155 million between 1993 and 2000.
In recent months, Cuba has cancelled about $18 million worth of
projects funded by the European Union, according to one Havana-based
European diplomat. More than a dozen other bilateral aid projects
funded by European nations also have been eliminated.
At the same time, Cuban leaders continue to criticize President Bush,
who opposes any easing of the trade embargo or lifting of the travel
ban that prohibits most Americans from legally visiting the island.
Experts said Cuban officials are seeking an economic boost by
improving ties with Brazil, China and other large developing nations.
Cuban officials also are hoping that purchasing American agricultural
products from as many U.S. companies as possible will eventually
create a lobby powerful enough to overturn the sanctions, which remain
an impediment to economic growth.
Farm-state politicians and business leaders are among the most
vociferous opponents of the embargo.
"The 40-year-old economic embargo hasn't worked," said Chris Aberle,
director of domestic sales for the Iowa-based cooperative FCStone,
which last week sold corn and soy to Cuba. "I personally disagree with
using food like a carrot on a stick."
The first U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba began in December 2001 after
the island's agricultural sector was devastated by Hurricane Michelle.
According to U.S. law, the Cubans must pay cash for all U.S. exports _
a condition that restricts sales in this cash-strapped economy but
makes the deals particularly attractive to U.S. sellers.
The sale of U.S. agricultural products to Cuba increased substantially
in September 2002, when 288 exhibitors displayed their products at the
first U.S. Food and Agribusiness Exhibition in Havana. The five-day
fair ended with $92 million in U.S. sales.
At one point, Castro was mobbed as he toured the exhibition hall and
stopped at the Archer Daniels Midland booth, where he sampled a
chocolate milkshake, French fries and a hamburger each containing a
soy protein ingredient produced by the company.
Since then, DeLio said, the Cubans have purchased tens of thousands of
dollars worth of the soy ingredient from ADM. He predicted increased
sales by many U.S. companies, even though the Bush administration
denied a license for a new agribusiness trade show this year in
Havana.
"It's happening quietly, effectively and routinely," he said.
___
(c) 2003, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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Amy
Este es el newsgroup de Puerto Rico. Perdonen que Doris les haya hecho
crossposting pero es que la tipa no tiene vida. Es una loser como mucho de
esos rebeldes sin causa que se hacen llamar "liberales".
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