China Trade Vote Weakens Opposition.
By William Neikirk. Chicago Tribune. Washington Bureau May 26, 2000
WASHINGTON -- After voting to expand trade relations with China, the House of Representatives sent a rebuff to its leaders Thursday and signaled it is prepared to relax America's trade embargo against Cuba.
Growing support for lifting the embargo on sales of food and medicine to Cuba became apparent when GOP leaders tried to use a procedural maneuver to strip the Cuba proposal from a spending bill and found, to their embarrassment, they couldn't put it across.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) halted consideration of the bill containing the proposal until after the Memorial Day recess--a move that gives the Republican leadership more time to mount a defense against the measure.
The amendment also would permit food and medicine sales to other "rogue states": Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea.
But it is the Cuba proviso that presents a major dilemma for the speaker, who is trying to move legislation with only a six-seat Republican margin. For even though relaxing the embargo against Cuba seems increasingly popular--notably with farm-state representatives eager to seek new
markets--anti-Castro sentiment in the conservative wing of the GOP is still strong.
Election-year politics and the Elian Gonzalez case appeared to play a major role in Hastert's move to put off a vote.
The GOP has closely aligned itself with Florida's politically potent anti-Castro Cuban community, which strongly opposed Atty. Gen. Janet Reno's decision to seize the Cuban boy from his Miami relatives, reunite him with his father and possibly clear the way for the child's return to Cuba. There
also are several close Florida House races where U.S.-Cuba relations could be a factor.
Yet sentiment for engaging Fidel Castro by expanding commercial ties appears to be on the rise in both parties. Supporters of relaxing the Cuban embargo said the House's approval on Wednesday of a measure to normalize trade relations with China undercut lawmakers who oppose loosening the embargo
with Cuba.
"You can't say on the one hand that we should open trade relations with China and deny that same concept to Cuba," said Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash.), sponsor of the amendment that would allow selling food and medicine to Cuba and the four other countries currently under embargo.
If his proposal were given a chance on the floor, Nethercutt said, "I believe it would get 300 votes." Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) agreed. "I think it would pass--big time," he said.
"We need to be in Cuba," Shimkus said. Referring to the trade vote involving China, he added, "If you say it's good for the Chinese people, it's also good for the Cuban people."
A proposal to allow Americans to sell food and medicine in Cuba sailed through the Senate a year ago, but it stalled in the House, blocked by congressional leaders. And despite this week's China vote, GOP leaders still have powerful procedural tools to block any proposal on the floor.
For example, when the speaker calls for a vote on a procedural matter, he usually can be assured of party loyalty and support--it's a way of demonstrating who's in charge. Shimkus, for one, said he normally would be supportive of the speaker on such votes.
But Hastert found he didn't have that support on a key procedural vote Thursday.
The House Rules Committee, the traffic cop of legislation controlled by the speaker, had adopted a rule to bring up the agriculture spending bill with the Cuba amendment attached.
There was only one problem--the committee refused to protect the amendment from a procedure known as a point of order. That means a single House member could have objected that the amendment didn't involve spending, and that would kill it.
But Nethercutt and others saw through this tactic and threatened to vote against the rule. Rather than risk a floor vote on Cuba trade in an election year, Hastert halted the proceedings, according to a source close to the speaker.
John Feehery, the speaker's press secretary, said the spending bill for agriculture programs should contain no amendments unrelated to core legislation: "This needs to be worked out on a different bill."Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a Cuban native and strong opponent to changing
the embargo, said Hastert acted for reasons other than Cuba. He said a proposal to give apple growers a subsidy, with offsetting cuts to come from a program to help wetlands, was the major reason he halted the bill.
Other Republicans weren't buying this explanation.
"It's about Cuba," said Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). While he is skeptical of relaxing the embargo with Cuba, he said some members had shown the "height of hypocrisy" in voting to open trade relations with China while denying them with Cuba. He said the Cuban amendment
probably would pass the House.
Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a supporter of engaging Castro by allowing more commerce and travel to Cuba, said the speaker yanked the bill because he didn't have the votes. "They're in a Catch-22 now."
Sanford said the GOP leadership is blocking the bill "due to political contributions and influence from the Cuban community. It's legitimate, but that's how the game is played in Washington."
Already, Sanford added, he has 74 co-sponsors of a bill to allow freedom of travel to Cuba, and "we're just getting started. We introduced the bill on the 25th of May."
Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said he has reservations about the Nethercutt plan on grounds that the food and medicine wouldn't necessarily go to the needy, but would "get diverted to Fidel Castro's purpose."
Goss also said the countries involved in the measure complicate the political and legislative outlook.
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) said while he would support the sale of food and medicine to Cuba, he could not support relaxing trade relations with Iran. "Iran's leaders have openly threatened Israel."
Several Democrats said House attitudes on Cuba are changing. Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) called America's Cuban policy an "abysmal and absolute failure" and said the China vote could prove to be the spark that ushers in a new, more open policy toward Castro. Election-year politics and the
Elian controversy have been major hurdles to progress, Roemer said.
Though the Senate approved a Cuba measure by a 70-28 vote a year ago, the same kind of support is not assured this year. For one thing, Rep. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is a powerful voice of opposition.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott also expressed his opposition to relaxing trade relations with Cuba. When asked this week to explain why the U.S. could expand trade relations with China and not with Cuba, Lott told reporters, "It's very easy to see the distinction. ... And if you can't
see it, I don't know. Maybe you're just blind to it."
His spokesman, John Czwartacki, said China has adopted trade reforms and allowed U.S. capitalists into the country, while Castro has been resistant to trade reforms, and any benefits of U.S. trade "would go to Castro's government and his government alone."
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) said he favors engaging Castro and changing Cuba through increased trade. But he said that now there's only a 50-50 chance the Senate would approve changing the embargo in an election year. |