By Stephen Fidler in Washington. Financial Times. Published: June 21 2000 18:30GMT | Last Updated: June 22 2000 03:42GMT
Republicans in the House of Representatives said on Wednesday that a deal was close that would allow passage of legislation to ease food and medicine sales to Cuba and four other countries facing US sanctions.
The measure would allow the sale of US food and medicine - for cash only - to Iran, Sudan, Libya, North Korea and Cuba. If it goes ahead, the proposal may be attached to an agricultural spending bill expected to go to the House floor next week.
Similar legislation has passed in the Senate but had seemed doomed in the House because of objections from the leadership in the House, led by Tom DeLay, the majority whip, to the inclusion of Cuba.
The movement towards a deal followed a 90-minute meeting on Tuesday night with Dick Armey, the House majority leader, and Tom Delay, the Republican whip in the House, Cuban-American lawmakers Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, together with proponents of easing sanctions, led by George
Nethercutt of Washington state.
"We're close but there is no deal yet. The actual agreement is still sensitive and fragile," said Tom McArthur, spokesman for Mr Nethercutt. He has said that if the proposal came to the House floor, it would have the support of more than 300 legislators on both sides.
Jonathan Baron, a spokesman for Mr DeLay, said the House leadership was still trying to bridge differences between the two Republican camps - those seeking the sanction exemptions and those representing the views the Cuban-Americans - in a way that upheld the principles of both. "Nobody
knows if that's achievable," he said.
US Department of Agriculture estimates suggest the value of the five markets for US farm exports could eventually amount to some $7bn, of which Cuba would account for about $1bn, but the curbs limiting purchases only to cash payments would probably reduce this.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted down, by 59-41, a proposal from Christopher Dodd of Connecticut to create a bipartisan commission to initiate a review of US policy toward Cuba. Mr Dodd had sought to encourage reconsideration of US policy to Cuba after Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, goes.
The farm lobby has played an important part in the move to ease these sanctions, reflecting the deep financial difficulties of many US farmers.
According to some on Capitol Hill, the political undercurrents influencing Cuba policy have been changing. Some lawmakers had been swayed by the granting of permanent normal trade relations with China, which made the 40-year embargo against Cuba appear even more of an anomaly.
The Elian Gonzalez case had also had an impact: first by emphasising the suffering of many people in Cuba, and second by weakening somewhat the grip of hard-line anti-Castro Cuban-Americans on the Republican Party. |