Cargill takes the lead in urging end to Cuba trade restrictions
Source: Star Tribune
Cargill takes the lead in urging end to Cuba trade restrictions
Article by: JIM SPENCER and ALLISON SHERRY , Star Tribune staff writers
Updated: January 16, 2015 - 8:38 AM
WASHINGTON – Just a month after President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, Cargill is taking the lead on a more controversial and ambitious goal: Urging Congress to roll back the 54-year-old trade embargo that restricts U.S. businesses from selling to Cubans.
“Ending the embargo is necessary for meaningful trade,” the company’s director of Latin American corporate affairs, Devry Boughner Vorwerk, said earlier this week at a seminar on the future of Cuban-American interaction. Vorwerk called restrictions “a failed policy experiment for 54 years” that costs the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars annually in potential soybean, rice and wheat exports.
Congress must vote on lifting the embargo, though the president has taken dramatic steps in the past month to open up business, trade and travel relationships with the island.
On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced measures to shed rules against travel, trade, banking and formal communications with Cuba. Commerce Department officials authorized airlines to provide air service and permitted U.S. insurers to provide coverage for global health, life or travel insurance policies for people traveling within Cuba. The department also lifted restrictions on telecommunications and certain Cuban imports.
Also Thursday, legislation was reintroduced in the new Congress to repeal the trade embargo with Cuba and crack open the market for everything from wheat to American automobiles. Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, who represents northwestern Minnesota’s agricultural interests, is a cosponsor, as are Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison and Rick Nolan.
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