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Coalition of Ag Groups Meet with Cubans to Advance Trade
USAgNet - 11/19/2018

Representatives of U.S. agribusiness, the farming lobby and related industries opened a three-day conference in Cuba on Thursday aimed at increasing sales and cooperation with a country that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly lambasted and promised to tighten sanctions on. Cuba, which seeks increased trade with Cuba and the lifting of the trade embargo, is sponsoring the event.

According to Reuters, U.S. farmers and agribusinesses have sold $5.7 billion in food to the Communist-run Caribbean island since 2000, when an amendment to the trade embargo allowed agricultural sales for cash, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a New York-based organization that monitors the bilateral trade.

Cuba imports up to $2 billion a year in food products. U.S. farmers want a larger piece of the pie, but are stymied because Cuba cannot make purchases on credit and there is no U.S. trade cover as with other countries, according to Paul Johnson, co-chair of the U.S. Agricultural Coalition for Cuba.

"Rural America supported President Trump and will continue to support President Trump and we want him to remember those people also want to open up the Cuban market," he told Reuters.

Trump has promised to undo the gradual improvement of relations with Cuba begun by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and has drastically reduced staff at the U.S. Embassy in Havana and Cuba's Embassy in Washington.

However, much of the economic relationship, from food sales to travel and communications, remains partly due to the political clout of organizations such as the coalition, reports Reuters.

Johnson said trade had not met its potential and changes under way in Cuba, including market oriented reforms and a new president without Castro as a last name, represented an opportunity to be grasped.

Republican Congressman Rick Crawford from Arkansas, whose state was a major exporter of rice to Cuba before the Revolution, made the opening remarks at the conference.

He later told Reuters "polling shows the majority of Americans favor improved relations" despite opposition from hard line Cuban exiles, many of whom are in Florida. "There are 49 other states," he said.


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