Despite embargo, Cuba imports daiquiris from US

Despite embargo, Cuba imports daiquiris from US

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ – 39 minutes ago

MIAMI (AP) — Jugs of daiquiri mix. Gourmet nuts. Rolls of newsprint. Not
exactly humanitarian aid, but still among the items sold to Cuba under
an agricultural waiver carved out of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo.

American businesses are raking in more than $700 million a year selling
these and other products to the Cuban government under the waiver, which
was passed by Congress partly on humanitarian grounds and signed in 2000
by President Bill Clinton.

Backers said the measure would expand U.S. markets and help the
communist country feed its people. And the waiver has accomplished that,
with huge shipments of grain, chicken and other products.

Some of the goods, though, wind up in a select group of supermarkets
where few Cubans can shop, or in the island's exclusive resorts and
hotels, which most Cubans can't visit.

As President Barack Obama calls for a fresh start in U.S.-Cuban
relations, sales of high-end treats and other seemingly nonessential
items highlight the inconsistencies in the current American policy.

"It's hypocritical both ways," said Andy Gomez, a Cuba expert at the
University of Miami. "From the U.S. side, it was done by the
administration to help certain members of Congress who wanted the sales.
But from the Cuba side, it shows that the U.S. embargo is not really
what is hurting the Cuban people."

The embargo was imposed in 1961 at the height of the Cold War, but that
hasn't kept the U.S. from becoming Cuba's largest foreign source of
agricultural products. The waiver, which was championed by politicians
from agricultural states, covers hundreds of categories, including
wood-related and medical products, though the biggest sales to Cuba last
year were still the basics — $196 million in corn, $139 million in
poultry and $135 million in wheat, according to the Census Bureau.

Rep. Joanne Emerson, R-Mo., one of the waiver's original backers, said
that lawmakers at the time weren't focused on deciding item-by-item
which products to allow and which ones to disallow.

"When you get to the weeds, I don't think that's a good thing," she
said, adding, "The more products we can sell to the island, the better."

The waiver has created all kinds of exotic opportunities for American
businesses.

One of the first U.S. companies to sign a deal with Cuba was not an
agriculture giant sending grain from the heartland. It was a drink mix
company in Fort Lauderdale.

Rich Waltzer, owner of Splash Tropical Drinks, frequently provides the
mixes for the daiquiris and margaritas tourists sip at Havana's
legendary Hotel Nacional.

The daiquiri is believed to have been created in Cuba about a century
ago; the rum drink apparently got its name from a beach and an iron mine
in Cuba. While the notion of sending daiquiris to Cuba might seem
comical, Waltzer said Cuban officials liked the predictability of his
product, and besides, they don't grow strawberries in Cuba.

"When I started, the only thing I knew about Cuba was Fidel Castro, the
Cuban missile crisis, rum and cigars," said the Brooklyn-bred Waltzer,
who also sells juices to Cuban schools.

Waltzer and other entrepreneurs are pretty happy with the way things are
now. The waiver is so broad that it includes beer, soda and a host of
inedible items such as beauty products, artwork, utility poles, kitchen
cabinets and Alabama newsprint, which totaled $6 million in sales last year.

Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks said the newsprint has been
used for Cuba's government-run papers — in which diatribes against the
U.S. embargo are frequent. Officials at the Communist Party newspaper
Granma and the Cuban government did not return calls from The Associated
Press.

"Agricultural groups have about 90 percent of what they want," said Dan
Erikson, author of "The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and
the Next Revolution."

But what agricultural groups would really like is more Americans
visiting the island. Under U.S. law, only Cuban-Americans and a few
groups such as journalists and academics are allowed to visit Cuba. More
tourists from the U.S. would mean more demand for food items, especially
higher-priced products and American brands.

Frank Walker, a food company representative who went to Cuba last year
representing Texas manufacturers, is securing contracts with Cuba for a
variety of upscale products, including New York-style cheesecake, key
lime pie and a rum-infused bundt cake.

"My products are driven by the tourist industry and food trade," Walker
said.

James Cason, former head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana under
President George W. Bush, said ending the trade embargo would hurt the
bargaining position of the U.S., which is hoping to prod Cuba to allow
more freedom for its citizens.

"There will come a time when the Castros are done," he said. "Then the
embargo will have some leverage."

In the meantime, the sale of the luxury goods demonstrates that at least
some basic laws of the market work even in a communist country like
Cuba, Erikson said: "If daiquiri mix sells in Cuba, then daiquiri mix is
what's going to go."

Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Havana contributed to this report.

The Associated Press: Despite embargo, Cuba imports daiquiris from US
(15 May 2009)

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