Cloudy outlook on Cuba sanctions as deadline nears

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A drive by farm and business groups to change U.S. sanctions on food and medicine sales to Cuba could be derailed by congressional disagreements over how far to go and fears of affecting the presidential vote in Florida, Capital Hill staffers and lobbyists said on Wednesday.

While proponents said on Wednesday that they remained confident of victory, there were jitters about the outcome. Representative Tom Ewing, an Illinois Republican, has said "I would not be surprised" if the proposal was quashed.

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Potentially a landmark change in U.S. relations with the communist island, the proposal will die unless lawmakers reach agreement before Congress adjourns in early October.

U.S. economic sanctions were imposed on President Fidel Castro's government four decades ago when Cuba began accepting Soviet aid. American farm and business groups say the embargo failed to isolate Cuba and now is a futile Cold War relic.

"The mood seems to be for change now," said a spokesman for Representative George Nethercutt, a Washington state Republican and a leading sponsor of loosening food and medicine sanctions.

Attempts to exempt these items from unilateral U.S. embargoes were thwarted at the last moment in 1998 and 1999 by hard-core opposition. The proposal, which would benefit North Korea, Iran, Libya, and Sudan as well as Cuba, enjoyed a strong start this year, but differences between the Senate and the House of Representatives must be resolved.

Farm groups say Cuba, 90 miles (145 km) from Florida in the Caribbean, would be a natural market for U.S. goods. Havana spends about $750 million a year on food imports, some of it purchased under favorable credit terms.

House Republican leaders, often harshly critical of Castro, brokered a compromise between Nethercutt and anti-Castro lawmakers that would allow the sales but ban any government or private U.S. financing of food exports to Havana. It also would write current travel restrictions into law. Both provisions are unpalatable to advocates of closer relations.

Senators voted in late July for a food and medicine exemption that allows private financing, such as involvement by U.S. banks and insurers.

House and Senate negotiators may not meet until next week, if then, to work on the $75 billion agriculture funding bill that includes the troublesome Cuba language. Although time is short, staff workers said, discussions could conclude speedily if Republican leaders intervened.

"We assume we're going to be able to negotiate the original agreement we got in the House," said a press aide to Texas Republican Tom DeLay, No. 3 in the House leadership.

But farm groups and a sizable number of farm-state lawmakers prefer the more straightforward Senate language. Some of them say flatly that the House language is unacceptable, creating the possibility of stalemate.

"Leadership -- they are very unwilling to go farther than ... the deal," a House staff worker said.

A farm lobbyist said the House language was so restrictive it would bar simple steps like a U.S. bank's acceptance of a letter of credit as part of a food sale to Cuba. "We're all saying we want the Senate version," she said.

With public opinion polls showing a tight race in Florida, there was concern among trade groups that the Cuba language might be sidelined as too risky. Cuban Americans are a potent political bloc in Florida.

"Neither side wants to do anything that might affect Florida" if a small shift in votes could tip the election, a trade group official said.

Pedro Alvarez Borrego, head of the Cuban food-importing agency Alimport, was in the United States this week to meet farm and agribusiness leaders in Texas and Illinois. In a telephone interview with Reuters, he said sanctions hurt U.S. producers more than Cuba.

"In practice, the blockade is imposed on U.S. producers and the U.S. people," he said through an interpreter. "Cuba can trade with the rest of the world. However, the U.S. farmers ... cannot trade with Cuba."

U.S. public sentiment has shifted toward closer relations with Cuba, in part because of child shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez. Alvarez said that just as "the U.S. people were a significant factor in having Elian returned to Cuba," they would spur an end to the "absurd blockade."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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  • Information on Cuba
  • Cuban Adjustment Act Fact Sheet
I.N.S. Information for Cuban Immingrants
Amnesty International
  • 1999 Report on Cuba

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