By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Former U.S. Agriculture Secretary John Block added his voice Wednesday to growing calls by American farm groups and companies for Washington to end its long-running trade sanctions against communist-ruled Cuba.
``I believe we should be trading with Cuba,'' Block, who served under Republican President Ronald Reagan, told reporters during a visit to the Caribbean island by a group of executives from major U.S. agribusiness and equipment companies.
The visit was the most recent by representatives of U.S. farm businesses and organisations, which have increasingly sent fact-finding teams to Cuba to explore sales opportunities after modifications last year to the U.S. embargo against Havana.
This latest trip went ahead despite a seven-week custody battle over Cuban shipwreck boy Elian Gonzalez which has strained sensitive U.S.-Cuban relations and triggered a war of words between Havana and anti-communist Cuban exiles in Miami.
Block, who visited farms and an agricultural research centre in Havana Province with the rest of the delegation, said it made no sense for the United States not to trade with Cuba.
He said the Caribbean island, lying just 90 miles (140 km) from U.S. territory, represented a potential market worth $1 billion a year for U.S. food exporters.
``When the Russians were the 'evil empire', I signed trade agreements with them,'' said Block, who is now President of Food Distributors International, an association of food wholesalers.
He said the United States now traded with communist-ruled Vietnam after lifting a trade embargo against the Asian state in the mid-1990s.
With Block on the delegation were executives from agribusiness companies like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM.N), Dow AgroSciences (DOW.N), Monsanto (MTC.N) and Premium Standard Farms, which forms part of the ContiGroup, formerly Continental Grain Company.
The 15-member mission was led by John Costello, President of the Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs, a Washington-based group promoting private enterprise-based economic development.
Costello said the visit, which was authorised by the U.S. government, responded to changes to the Cuba embargo made last year by President Bill Clinton. These allowed licensed U.S. food exports to Cuba on a case-by-case basis provided the end- users were independent, nongovernmental entities.
Costello said it was important that American companies positioned themselves for the future to take advantage of both changes in Cuba and changes in U.S. policy toward the island.
The powerful U.S. farm lobby has been increasingly pressing Clinton's administration to exempt food from U.S. unilateral trade embargoes, including the one against Cuba. ``We will do our part to crack the door open a little more,'' Block said.
Farm state legislators, backed by opponents of the 38-year- old U.S. embargo against Cuba, are expected to renew efforts this year to remove food, and medicines, from the embargoes.
18:17 01-12-00
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