US Farm Exports to Cuba Set to Grow

Enabling smaller companies

U.S. farmers have been selling food to Cuba for a few years, after an earlier partial easing of the trade embargo, but they complain they are losing business to other nations because current U.S. law blocks the kind of marketing and financing their rivals use to sell more goods.

Minnesota cattle rancher Ralph Kaehler said large companies may have the resources to prosper without help from the U.S. Agriculture Department, but small companies like his do not.

Farmer Doug Keesling, whose family has been raising wheat in Kansas for five generations, said the current U.S. “rules and laws” complicate financing and make it “too expensive” to compete for business in Cuba.

These farmers and other experts also complain the Cuban government requires U.S. goods to go through its “Alimport” organization, needlessly complicating and slowing down such transactions.

Some business, though, is already underway. Officials at the U.S. port of New Orleans say they ship 25,000 tons of frozen chicken from American producers to Cuba each year, and are “optimistic” the trade will grow in volume and variety.

Making progress

Matt Gresham said New Orleans was one of the island’s largest trading partners prior to the embargo, and could eventually regain that status.

He said the Cuban people will likely need farm products, machinery and many other goods, but he expects it will take a while for the island’s economy to expand enough to create additional buying power.

That growth may be helped by Obama's policy changes that loosen restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba, and raise the limit on remittances.

Harvard University's Manuel Orozco writes these changes will allow more Cuban businesses to offer electronic transactions, boost competition for financial services, and increase disposable income for many Cubans. Taken together, these changes will boost purchasing power, savings and investment. That will help expand the island's small private sector.

New York’s Andrew Cuomo is not waiting for political, legal, or economic progress. He's leading a trade delegation to Cuba this week. That makes him the first governor of a U.S. state to head such a mission since Obama eased restrictions.

Билет №8

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