US gives green light to food sales to hurricane-hit Cuba

US gives green light to food sales to hurricane-hit Cuba
19 hours ago

HAVANA (AFP) — Bypassing its trade embargo on communist Cuba, the United
States on Tuesday announced approving 250 million dollars in "farm
sales" to Havana after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike devastated Cuba's crops.

The licenses for agricultural sales, which include food and construction
materials, were approved after Ike lashed Cuba a week ago and "wood, a
material essential to rebuilding, is included," read a State Department
communique delivered to reporters at the US Interests Section in Havana.

State Department officials in Washington on Monday it regretted that
Cuba rejected up to five million dollars in aid for the victims of
Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The United States has tense and limited
relations with its communist neighbor, which has been under a US embargo
for more than four decades.

After being hit hard by two hurricanes in less than two weeks, desperate
Cuba last week urged Washington to ease its trade embargo to allow US
firms to open private lines of credit for food imports to the
cash-strapped island of more than 11 million people.

The bilateral breakthrough "is more or less what they (the Cubans) are
asking for, not credit because our law does not permit it. That will
have to be through third parties. The license includes food and wood," a
US diplomat in Havana told AFP privately.

A Spanish aircraft meanwhile was due in Cuba on Tuesday with 17 tonnes
of aid from the World Food Program and another four tonnes from Spain to
help those affected by the hurricanes. Other countries, including
Brazil, Russia and Ecuador, have also sent humanitarian assistance.

Spain also has promised 300,000 euros for rebuilding social
infrastructure, 200,000 euros for the Red Cross and another 18,000 via
the Pan American Health Organization for the repair of medical centers,
according to an official statement.

Cuba on Friday said it did not have the resources to recover from the
devastation wrought by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, including seven dead,
320,000 homes destroyed and extensive damage to crops.

Even before the hurricanes hit, Cuba faced major challenges keeping its
people fed. Since 2002, the World Food Program has assisted more than
593,000 people per year mainly in Cuba's east, WFP data say.

US officials say there have been no significant political changes in
Cuba since Washington's longtime and increasingly frail nemesis, Fidel
Castro, 82, stepped down as president in February and handed power to
his younger brother Raul, 77.

But in bilateral commercial ties, things have changed in the past decade.

While maintaining its sanctions officially, US President George W.
Bush's administration has become a leading supplier of food to Cuba due
to an embargo loophole opened after the Caribbean nation was hit by
another hurricane, Michelle, in 2001.

At the time, the United States offered aid and Cuba turned it down,
suggesting instead that it be allowed to purchase food and medicine. The
Bush administration agreed on condition the purchases were in cash,
opening the way to a surge in US-to-Cuba food trade.

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