By The Associated Press. Thursday, September 14, 2000. Daily Southtown
Archer Daniels Midland Co. hopes a visit by five Cuban government officials will give the giant food-processor a leg up if the United States lifts trade sanctions against the communist nation.
But other than nurturing goodwill, the visit will do little to sway the debate in favor of lifting the embargo, a Cuba expert says.
After a visit to Texas sponsored by the Texas Farm Bureau, the Cuban delegation, representing government-run agricultural agencies, arrived in Decatur on Tuesday at ADM's invitation.
Before the delegation leaves Friday, members are scheduled to stop at ADM's soybean and corn-processing plants and Millikin University in Decatur; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and area farms to see "the U.S. food chain from seed to plate," according to an ADM
statement.
"We're their nearest neighbor and we should be trading with one another," ADM spokesman Larry Cunningham said. "We tried 40 years of an embargo, and it absolutely hasn't worked."
But the visit won't do much to sway the debate, which so far has been won by Cuban-Americans opposed to dictator Fidel Castro's reign, said Lisandro Perez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University in Miami.
"This tour might have some impact on public opinion in Illinois, but I'm not sure that would translate into the kind of political action that would be sufficient to counter this single-issue constituency," Perez said.
According to the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc., Cuba bought $750 million worth of food in 1999 from Canada, France, New Zealand, Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam and China.
With help from people such as Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who led a much-talked-about mission to Cuba last fall, it's not as politically prickly for companies such as ADM to talk about lifting the embargo, said John Kavulich, the trade council president.
"This visit demonstrates that companies no longer look at Cuba as a public-sector liability," Kavulich said. "We now have companies visibly vying to have these delegations to come visit."
Rob Phillips, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, said that was one intention of Ryan's trip, originally labeled a trade mission but later renamed a humanitarian mission because the embargo prohibits trade talks.
"This is the kind of event we were hoping would follow from the governor's trip, and we encourage more in the future," Phillips said.
ADM has donated hundreds of tons of soy products to Cuba in the past two years and arranged this week's visit when it was the vitamin and food sponsor of the U.S. Healthcare Exhibition in Havana in January; it wants a foot in the door should the trading gates open, Cunningham said.
Measures to ease sanctions passed the U.S. House this summer but House leadership continues to oppose them.
"If Cuba were China in terms of market, there might be more pressure for it, but apparently, Cuba does not represent to enough of a market for people to go down on their sword on this thing," Perez said.
© 2000 Associated Press | 