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In
Cuba, agribusiness as usual
Kevin Diaz, Star
Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent. Minneapolis,
September 2, 2003.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A year ago this month, Fidel
Castro was mugging for the cameras with a bull
named "Minnesota Red," and a cigar-chomping
Jesse Ventura was dancing at the Club Habana in
Cuba.
The mambo party has died down a little since
then: Castro imprisoned dozens of dissidents and
journalists this past March, accusing them of
being U.S. spies. He also had three men executed
by firing squad for trying to hijack a ferry out
of the Communist nation.
The Bush administration now won't let Cuban diplomats
in Washington, D.C., even buy and sell cars, and
a U.S. food show planned for Havana in January
has been canceled because the Treasury Department
won't grant the necessary permits. Exhibitors
need special licenses exempting them from laws
against spending money in Cuba.
Efforts to ease travel restrictions to Cuba --
an idea that seemed to be gaining momentum last
fall -- appear to have stalled as Congress returns
to work this week.
The administration is clamping down on "people-to-people"
visits sponsored by U.S. schools and non-profit
groups, with most current licenses expected to
expire by the end of the year.
But even if folk musicians no longer greet U.S.
business travellers at Cuba's Jose Marti International
airport, the Cuban government is still placing
food orders. And U.S. companies, such as Hormel,
based in Austin, Minn., and Cargill Inc., based
in Minnetonka, are still filling them.
The trade show that Ventura headlined has generated
$92 million in U.S. food contracts with Cuba.
The United States supplanted France this year
as Cuba's top food supplier. Next year, total
sales are expected to top $200 million.
Big Chill or not, it's agribusiness as usual
for U.S. farmers -- albeit with a less hoopla.
"Last year, executives of U.S. companies
were acting in open defiance of the wishes of
the president of the United States when it came
to Cuba," said John Kavulich, president of
the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which
monitors trade between the two former Cold War
antagonists.
Now, however, "there's a sobering that's
taken place," he said. "You don't have
the same exuberance, irrational as it was at times."
'Frosting'
Exuberance or no, U.S. food sales to Cuba are
still on the upswing. And much of it is attributed
to last fall's "charm offensive" by
Castro, who seemed determined to make the trip
worthwhile for U.S. food producers such as Ralph
Kaehler, the cattleman from St. Charles, Minn.,
who brought along "Minnesota Red."
Kaehler and his sons, Seth and Cliff, became
the stars of the show when Castro entered their
bull pen as an international gaggle of television
cameras recorded it all.
"It gave us exposure," Kaehler said,
"but once we were there we had to earn the
business ourselves."
Since then, Kaehler has had to wait for Cuban
buyers and veterinarians to get visas to visit
his operation. But it paid off in July when two
of his animals joined a shipment of 139 head of
U.S. cattle bound for Cuba, about half of them
from Iowa and Minnesota.
Kaehler described the small sale as "frosting,"
rather than the cake. "But eventually they're
going to buy a whole load of feed cattle from
us."
In 2002, a year after Congress cracked the 42-year-old
economic embargo and permitted cash-only food
sales to the nation of 11 million, Cuba bought
$138 million of food from the United States, mostly
in such bulk commodities as corn, wheat, rice
and soy products.
This year, U.S. food sales to Cuba are expected
to exceed $166 million, and $200 million next
year.
While the Bush administration officially frowns
on the sales, it has not tried to stop them.
"We've continued to do business quietly,"
said Anthony DeLio, a corporate vice president
for Illinois-based ADM, which accounts for about
half of all U.S. food sales to Cuba.
"They're still placing orders, and we're
delivering."
Cargill, which has sold 300,000 metric tons of
food to Cuba since 2001, reports that little has
changed in its business relationship with Cuba
in the past year.
"Although the politics have ebbed and flowed,
the business has been good, and it has been consistent,"
said Van Yeutter, a Washington representative
for Cargill.
'Miserable lives'
Some would-be sellers have been turned off by
the past year's escalation of tensions with Castro.
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and a Maryland contingent
have put off trips to Cuba, as have a handful
of private companies.
Those who continue to do business with Castro's
government hold to the logic that the sales help
U.S. farmers and that trade will lead to a greater
openness in Cuba.
That's the position of the bipartisan House Cuba
Working Group, which includes Minnesota U.S. Reps.
Jim Ramstad, a Republican, and Collin Peterson,
a Democrat.
But that proposition has come under attack since
Castro's crackdown on dissidents in March and
April.
"I don't see any evidence that trade undermines
repressive regimes," said Dennis Hays, executive
vice president of the Cuban American National
Foundation, an anti-Castro exile group. "It
creates partnerships with repressive regimes,
which continues people's miserable lives."
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., a co-sponsor of legislation
to lift travel restrictions to Cuba, argues that
the limited sales of food to the island so far
hardly permit a "fair assessment" of
the effects of trade.
Dayton acknowledged, however, that Castro's harsh
measures this spring made it more difficult to
move toward normalization of relations.
It is all the more unlikely, Dayton said, considering
the onset of a presidential election year in which
Florida, with its large Cuban exile community,
could again prove decisive -- with two more electoral
votes than it had in 2000.
All of which mystifies trade proponents who wonder
what Castro was thinking when -- on the same day
the U.S. ground war began in Iraq -- he launched
a wave of arrests against 75 political dissidents.
The arrests and subsequent executions have gotten
the attention of Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who
said he is planning a trip to Cuba soon to monitor
the human rights situation.
One view is that Castro calculated that a distracted
world wouldn't take much notice. Another is that
he feared growing American bellicosity. But the
most prevalent view is that Castro, no matter
how much he needs to feed his people, also needs
to keep the United States at arm's length.
Kevin Diaz is at kdiaz@mcclatchydc.com.
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