The National Interest
Spring 2002

The New Cuba Divide

by Daniel P. Erikson

 

. . . Although many religious organizations have opposed the Cuba embargo for years, the American farming lobby has now emerged as the most influential new voice in current policymaking. In Congress, it is led by several senior western Republicans who are being pressed by their constituencies to seek new markets. In Cold War days, these legislators would have supported anti-Castro initiatives as an easy way to accrue political capital within the party at little personal cost. The end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of a new farming crisis in the 1990s has changed all that, allowing a nascent coalition of liberal Democrats and western conservatives to pump new life into congressional momentum to repeal the Cuban embargo. . . .

The farm lobby scored an important victory when the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act was signed into law in October 2000, just months after the PNTR vote. This act, sponsored by Nethercutt, finally does allow food and medicine trade with Cuba, and it made possible the all-cash purchases in the aftermath of Hurricane Michelle. It is clearly the most significant legislative initiative passed on Cuba since the 1996 Helms-Burton bill. Nor is congressional pressure against the embargo easing. The October 2000 act still prohibits public financing of food sales to Cuba, and that restriction has now become the focus of subsequent efforts. The American Farming Bureau Federation is seeking exemption of U.S. products from all existing embargoes and sanctions, which are estimated to cost U.S. farmers 14 percent of the export market for rice, 10 percent for wheat, 5 percent for vegetable oil and barley, and 4 percent of foreign corn sales. . . .