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McClash
takes flak for Cuba trade agreement
By Michael Braga, michael.braga@heraldtribune.com.
Herald-Tribune.
PORT MANATEE -- Several Manatee County
Port Authority board members are upset that
Chairman Joe McClash signed an agreement
with a Cuban government agency last month
without consulting them.
They demanded that the "memorandum
of understanding" be amended to remove
what they considered politically charged
language calling for Cuba and Port Manatee
to work toward "free and unrestricted
travel and trade."
"The language of the agreement put
us in the position of advocating the position
of the Cuban government with respect to
the U.S. trade embargo," said Jonathan
Bruce, a county commissioner and authority
board member. "It flies in the face
of U.S. policy."
Bruce, speaking at the authority's monthly
meeting on Thursday, has long opposed efforts
by the authority and port officials to increase
trade with Cuba, believing that action only
serves to prop up the government of dictator
Fidel Castro.
The authority's concerns came up during
a week when hundreds representing agribusinesses,
port authorities, supermarkets and other
enterprises marked the second anniversary
of the first U.S. commercial food shipments
to post-revolutionary Cuba.
On Monday, those interests reiterated their
call for an end to the trade and travel
embargo.
But the port authority members -- the seven
Manatee County commissioners -- agreed to
delete an offending passage from the memorandum.
McClash apologized for not contacting other
board members before signing it. He said
he tried to get a copy to each board member
before the signing ceremony, but because
of an administrative screw-up at the commission's
office in Bradenton, that proved impossible.
"It was just an unfortunate situation,"
McClash said.
The United States first imposed a trade
embargo against Cuba in 1960, to protest
Castro's expropriation of property belonging
to U.S. citizens and companies.
Congress relaxed the trade restrictions
in 2001, allowing U.S. companies to sell
a long list of food and medical products
to the island.
McClash and port officials have aggressively
attempted to grab a share of the burgeoning
trade between the two countries ever since.
In November, McClash traveled to Cuba with
a delegation from the port to meet with
trade officials there. It was during that
visit that he signed an agreement with Pedro
Alvarez, the head of Alimport, a Cuban government
agency charged with importing food products
to the island.
The agreement that included the offending
clause calls for Alimport to work with Port
Manatee to increase shipments of food, lumber
and other products that legally can be sold
to the Communist nation.
Port Authority member Pat Glass said she
first heard about the memorandum when a
television reporter contacted her for an
interview.
"Fortunately the TV station had a
copy of the agreement and gave me an opportunity
to quickly peruse it," Glass said.
Getting a policy document handed to her
in that way was completely unacceptable,
she said. Other authority members echoed
that sentiment.
"Any agreements need to come back
to the Port Authority prior to anyone signing
them, no matter how benign they may appear,"
Bruce said.
There are harsher critics of the authority's
efforts to work with the Cuban government.
Nick Gutierrez, a Miami lawyer whose family's
property was expropriated by the Cuban government
in 1960, placed most of the blame on Cuban
government representatives.
"Here we have foreign interference
in U.S. policy by an outlawed dictatorship
which is making conditions on American business
partners by asking them to lobby on their
behalf," Gutierrez said.
"Taking language out of the agreement
does not excuse Port Manatee from doing
business with a government that stole property
from its own citizens and is attempting
to traffic in the fruits of those properties,"
Gutierrez said.
Still, many Americans see great opportunity,
even in a Castro-run Cuba, pointing to nearly
$110 million in new U.S. food sales to the
island.
"Ending the embargo is the right thing
to do," said Iowa Agriculture Secretary
Patty Judge, one of the American farm leaders
in Cuba this week. "When Americans
can finally come to Cuba on vacation, they
might want steak, and we hope that steak
is sourced from Iowa."
Mike Carter, president of the Bradenton-based
construction company that bears his name,
said Port Manatee needs to continue to negotiate
trade deals.
"Congress exempted food and other
humanitarian products from the embargo for
the obvious reason that these products benefit
the Cuban people," Carter said. "I
think it's good for our port to try to be
a conduit of those shipments. It will enhance
our competitive position in the future."
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