Cuban diplomat promotes trade opportunities while in Pittsburgh

Cuban diplomat promotes trade opportunities while in Pittsburgh

July 1, 2014 10:11 PM

Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette



Jose Cabanas, top diplomat to the United States from Cuba, speaks to the

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board at the Post-Gazette building in

Downtown Pittsburgh on Tuesday.



The head of Cuba's diplomatic interest section in Washington was in

Pittsburgh the past two days meeting with business and academic groups,

taking in a little baseball, and hoping to promote a continuing thaw in

a relationship still profoundly chilled a generation after the end of

the Cold War.



Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, invited Ambassador Jose R. Cabanas to

visit the city.



In a meeting with Post-Gazette editors Tuesday, Mr. Cabanas promoted the

potential for trade and commerce that could follow some future change in

the ties between the two wary neighbors. He holds the diplomatic rank of

ambassador, but the U.S. and Cuba do not officially exchange

ambassadors. Instead, diplomats such as Mr. Cabanas operate under the

umbrella of the two capitals' Swiss embassies.



He described offshore drilling as one huge opportunity in the near

future. Alluding to the renewed surge of young undocumented immigrants

on the southern border, he said that only measures to spread prosperity

more broadly in Central American and the smaller islands of the

Caribbean would contain such unregulated immigration.



"There's the danger of lost opportunity," he said.



There is trade between the counties, but since the Kennedy

administration, a variety of legislation, notably the 1996 Helms-Burton

Act, has sharply restricted it. Mr. Cabanas acknowledged that political

circumstances, including the influence of a Florida Cuban community

strongly critical of Havana's human rights record, don't suggest the

likelihood of any imminent change in the the geopolitical realities. He

said he is optimistic that attitudes of younger citizens of both

countries will set the stage for closer ties in the future.



"What I have found this time is completely different from what I have

found before," he said, emphasizing that he was not comparing the

attitudes of Washington administrations but the attitudes of ordinary

Americans he encounters in a variety of unofficial contexts.



Mr. Cabanas had dinner Monday evening in Pittsburgh with Mr. Doyle and

met public officials including county Executive Rich Fitzgerald and

Mayor Bill Peduto. The rest of his Pittsburgh itinerary included a stop

at Carnegie Mellon University and meeting with a variety of business

executives.



Former U.S. Rep. Ron Klink, who accompanied the group, said he hoped the

trip would pave the way for future contacts including a trade mission to

Cuba for local officials and business leaders in October.



Asked whether he were considering the potential trade mission, Mr.

Fitzgerald said, "We are looking at it if there are economic

opportunities for our companies."





James P. O'Toole: jotoole@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1562.



Source: "Cuban diplomat promotes trade opportunities while in Pittsburgh

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