Farm Bureau Rep Is "Hopeful",
Not "Optimistic" About Cuba

By David Bowser

HAVANA, Cuba — If time spent with U.S. delegations is any indication, Fidel Castro is interested in importing agricultural products from the United States.

"We met with the Big Guy," says the Texas Farm Bureau's Gene Hall, who was recently in Cuba on a trade mission.

Cuba purchases about $90 million in agricultural goods annually, mostly from Canada, France and Southeast Asia.

"Clearly, our ultimate goal is to be able to trade all kinds of agriculture products, grains and livestock," Hall says. "There is very intense interest down there."

This year has been one of changes in U.S. trade policy, and Cuba could be the next major change.

"The President's announcement in late April that the U.S. would lift unilateral sanctions basically revises our sanctions policy so that we can move food products and humanitarian aid to these countries," explains Tim Galvin, administrator of the Foreign Agriculture Service at USDA.

USDA is working on regulations to implement that policy.

Using sanctions against the exportation of food and medicine to countries with which the U.S. has disputes has long been the nation's policy, but beginning in July 1998, that started to change.

For more than a year now, says Paul Aceto with the State Department, President Clinton has said the U.S. should not use food as a weapon.

"Since that time there have been various discussions about how we could change our sanctions policy," Aceto says. "Going on behind that was a more general effort to look at the whole arm of sanctions policy and see what was working and what wasn't."

In January, the administration decided to take a few steps to make it easier to sell food and medicine to Cuba, but changes at the policy level don't always translate into trade.

"The rules as I understand them allow for some limited trade if you can find an entity that has little to do with the government," Hall says. "We were unable to do that. We were unable to find such an entity; however, if we're successful in getting an amendment to the ag appropriations bill passed, we believe we made some contacts that should help us down there."

Following the administration's decision in January concerning Cuba, Clinton announced in April that food and medicine and medical equipment would generally be exempted from all unilateral sanctions the administration would impose.

"Practically speaking, that would affect trade with three countries: Iran, Sudan and Libya," Aceto says.

Some of the other countries that now have sanctions on them, such as Cuba, Iraq and North Korea, are covered by other legislative requirements.

"Sales of food are allowed to all those countries under different regimes," Aceto says. "Essentially, what this did, I would say, is make possible the sales of food to Iran, Sudan and Libya."

Cuba is subject to a whole set of laws, he notes.

"Any changes there will have to be approved by Congress," Aceto says. "The other changes were something that could be changed administratively. With Cuba, any major changes will have to come through legislation."

Congressman Nick Lampson, D-Texas, who led the delegation Hall was with, is optimistic that they can get some sanctions lifted, and U.S. agricultural producers will eventually trade with Cuba.

"Optimistic may be a little strong of a word for right now," says Hall.

Lampson is the latest of more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers to visit Cuba this year after the Clinton administration in January announced measures aimed at increasing contacts. Also in Havana was U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill.

Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., went to Cuba in August, just nine days after the Senate voted to allow essentially unrestricted food and drug sales to the island.

Daschle and Dorgan said Cuban officials told them the country imports almost $1 billion in food and medicine and that food imports could double in five years.

Daschle and Dorgan traveled to Cuba to discuss agriculture and trade. They met with Castro for seven hours.

"He doesn't just rush people through," Hall says.

Hall says the delegation he was with met with Castro from midnight until 5 a.m. of the day they were to leave the island nation.

"Right now, what is on the table is lifting the embargo strictly for food and medicine," Hall says. "If we can get that done, then we've got a foot in the door."

Hopeful may be a better word than optimistic right now, Hall says.

"What the administration is allowing right now is trade with private entities," Hall says. "Cooperatives, restaurants, things of that nature, where the Cuban government is not involved."

It seems clear at this time that will not work, Hall says.

"In our talks with Cuban government officials, those kinds of entities really don't exist in Cuba that can make this trade happen," Hall explains.

The sanctions in terms of food and medicine, he says, are incorporated in the bill Congress will be considering now that it has returned from its August recess.

"That may be our best hope for getting U.S. food into this market," Hall says.

Hall points out that the American Farm Bureau Federation is backing the legislation.

"Our position in Farm Bureau since day one really has been that food is not the most advisable weapon we can use in terms of foreign policy," Hall says. "Food is a weapon of peace, if you will. Food is what we have that the rest of the world wants. These sanctions on food, what they tend to do is punish the people of a nation, and they punish U.S. farmers and ranchers when they use food as a diplomatic weapon.

"We feel these sanctions have outlived their time. They're no longer accomplishing any economic or policy objective. We need to trade. That's the path to peace, trading."