Cuba embargo under pressure as Obama urged to lower barriers

Cuba embargo under pressure as Obama urged to lower barriers

By Bill Faries and David Lerman, Bloomberg News

Bloomberg

11:20 p.m. CDT, May 29, 2014



MIAMI — A political consensus against trade with communist Cuba that has

prevailed in Washington for half a century is showing signs of cracking.



As the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's biggest

business lobby, visits the Caribbean island this week, support is

growing for an easing of trade restrictions and an increase in academic

and cultural exchanges.



While few are advocating a full lifting of the embargo or the

restoration of diplomatic relations, almost four dozen former government

officials, retired military officers and business leaders wrote an open

letter to President Barack Obama this month urging him to ease some

constraints.



In another indication of the shifting mood, Cuban-American sugar

producer Andres Fanjul — part of a family long associated with support

for the embargo — signed the letter, which asks Obama to use his

presidential powers to authorize more import and export licenses, among

other steps.



"This is a moment to act," Fanjul, executive vice president of the West

Palm Beach, Fla.-based Fanjul Corp., said in an interview. "It's

important to expand opportunities to build relationships between the

American and Cuban families."



Supporters of further easing the 52-year embargo by executive order see

a window of opportunity after the U.S. midterm elections in November,

said Carl Meacham, director of the Americas program at the Center for

Strategic and International Studies in Washington.



"You're seeing, slowly but surely, a ratcheting up of the pressure,"

said Meacham, who served as the senior adviser for Latin America and the

Caribbean on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The window for

action starts with the election and finishes around the first quarter of

2015."



The momentum for change was on display on Thursday, when Tom Donohue,

president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber, gave a speech

at the University of Havana aimed at encouraging economic change in Cuba

and an eventual lifting of the trade embargo. He was to be accompanied

by Steve Van Andel, chairman of Amway and Marcel Smits, chief financial

officer of Cargill.



Donohue's visit to the island, his first in 15 years, came after the

Cuban government passed a law this year to attract more foreign

investment and President Raul Castro eased travel restrictions on

Cubans, including some dissidents.



"Through the new investment law, Cuba is inviting foreign partners to

invest in new sectors of the economy," Donohue said in prepared remarks.

"Approval of the law suggests that Cuban leaders understand what a

powerful tool for economic development and job creation foreign direct

investment can be."



Citing in particular a change in attitudes toward the embargo "among

younger generations of Cuban-Americans," Donohue called on Obama to

"create new avenues for imports and exports of goods" and services,

"starting with Cuba's new private sector."



Obama has acted on Cuba before, reversing some restrictions put in place

by his predecessor, George W. Bush, after taking office in 2009. Obama's

moves were denounced by lawmakers such as Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of

Florida, a Cuban- American Republican, who hasn't wavered in her

opposition to any easing of sanctions against the regime in Cuba, 90

miles from Florida.



Having outlasted 10 U.S. presidents so far, Cuba's Castro brothers are

approaching their 90s. Raul Castro, 82, has vowed to step down after his

term ends in 2018, while 87-year-old Fidel Castro is seldom seen in

public anymore.



Longtime Cuba watchers such as Wayne Smith say the approaching end of

the Castro regime, shifting political dynamics in the Cuban-American hot

spot of Florida, amid generational change, and an eagerness among some

in the U.S. business community for trade have combined to make an

opening possible.



"It shows the way the thing is moving," said Smith, a former U.S. chief

of mission in Havana who served as executive secretary of President John

F. Kennedy's Latin American Task Force a half-century ago. "Fewer and

fewer people are sticking with the old policy. There's a lot of momentum."



The Obama administration continues to weigh how best to encourage

positive change in Cuba, according to a State Department official who

asked not to be identified discussing policy deliberations. The U.S. has

taken steps to encourage greater access for Cubans to the Internet and

social media and has started talks with the Cuban government to set up

direct mail service between the countries, the official said.



The biggest obstacle to any White House movement on Cuba may be Sen.

Robert Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants who is chairman of the

Foreign Relations Committee.



In advance of Donohue's speech, the New Jersey Democrat wrote a letter

criticizing him for reaching out to a Cuban government that Menendez

said "jails foreign business leaders without justification, violates

international labor standards, and denies its citizens their basic rights."



"Such conditions hardly seem an attractive opportunity for any

responsible business leader," Menendez wrote.



Another barrier is Cuba's continued imprisonment of former U.S.

government contractor Alan Gross, who was arrested on spying charges in

2009 after taking telecommunications equipment to the island.



Source: Cuba embargo under pressure as Obama urged to lower barriers -

chicagotribune.com -

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