The Los Angeles Times. Thursday, May 25, 2000
Momentum is building in Congress to ease Washington's longtime economic isolation of Cuba and resume trade in food and medicine. This is a welcome trend. For humanitarian reasons, food and medicine should never have been subject to trade sanctions. As a practical matter, the policy of
slapping unilateral embargoes on countries out of favor with Washington has been largely discredited.
Alas, congressional recognition of the futility of such embargoes is not the motive for allowing the sale of U.S. food and medicine in Cuba. Rather it is U.S. farmers' need for the Cuban market. Demand last year for U.S. produce withered in Asia, and European consumers rejected genetically
modified corn and soybeans from America. Prices on the world markets tumbled. Business is improving this year, but farmers are not out of the woods.
It comes as no surprise, then, that the strongest support for easing the Cuba sanctions comes from farm state legislators, such as South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and Washington Rep. George R. Nethercutt Jr., a Republican, sponsor of a boycott-loosening measure awaiting action by
the full House. A similar measure easily passed the Senate last year. For American farmers, food exports to Cuba represent a potential $1-billion-a-year business.
Another reason why the partial lifting of the Cuba trade embargo has a better chance of passing this year has to do with the dwindling clout of the Cuban American community in the wake of the Elian Gonzalez affair. The community's defiance of U.S. authorities in its refusal to release the
6-year-old boy spurred indignation among many Americans, a sentiment clearly reflected in Congress.
Congress has taken several bold steps recently on the trade front, and for that it deserves credit. Most important, the House passed a measure Wednesday to grant China permanent trade privileges. And last week, after three years of struggle, it enacted a law to open U.S. markets, free of
tariffs, to imports from the world's poorest countries.
The time for a new policy on Cuba is at hand. Motives aside, Congress is on a good path. Easing the ban on food and medicine exports would be an important step. The Nethercutt measure should become law.
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times |