|
Senator Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, is a strong supporter of ending America's embargo against Cuba and replacing it with a normal trading relationship. He made that case forcefully at the January 8 launch of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba (USACC), where he was one of several high-profile speakers.
The history of U.S.-Cuban relations is, to say the least, colorful but not very happy. We are not going to attempt a full chronology. For this discussion, we shall take note of just five dates.
On January 3, 1961, President Eisenhower announced that the United States was "formally terminating diplomatic and consular relations with the Government of Cuba." This was after the Cuban government essentially expelled all but eleven of the U.S. diplomatic staff there. As President Eisenhower explained in his statement, "There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure."
On December 3, 2009, the Cuban government arrested, imprisoned, and later tried an American businessman, Alan Gross, who was a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Mr. Gross's continued incarceration later became a significant obstacle to improving the U.S.-Cuba relationship. Indeed in his remarks on January 8 - the source for today's quote - Senator Moran said that, two years ago, he had told his colleagues, "I'm done until Alan Gross is released."
On December 17, 2014, Alan Gross was released and returned to the United States. On the same day,
President Obama, speaking in the Cabinet Room of the White House, talked about Cuba and said, "We will begin to normalize relations between our two countries."
On January 8, 2015, as mentioned, the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba was launched with an event at the National Press Club. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke. So too did Representative Sam Farr (D) of California, and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) from Minnesota, Senator Moran and several others. Chaired by Cargill Vice President Devry Boughner Vorwerk, the coalition's goal "is to see relations between both countries fully normalized and put an end to the more than five decades old embargo."
On July 1, 2015, President Obama said:
"Today, I can announce that the United States has agreed to formally re-establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cuba, and re-open embassies in our respective countries."
***
Now let's return to Senator Moran and his comments at the USACC launch in January. Before being elected to the Senate in 2010, Mr. Moran served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a Congressman in 2000 he championed a bill that put a dent in the embargo. It carved out an exemption for food, medicine, and agriculture commodities. That legislation was successful, and because if it, there is now some trade. It is limited, though, because things like normal financing arrangements are not available.
Here is a little more of what he said in January about U.S. trade with Cuba:
"And if the goal of U.S. policy is to change the nature of Cuban citizens in the relationship with their government, what we have been doing has not worked. And it is not surprising it hasn't worked because it's a unilateral sanction. When we don't sell agriculture commodities, manufactured goods, when we don't trade with Cuba, it is not that they're not getting agricultural commodities or manufactured goods, it's just that they're buying them from someone else. And Kansans and Americans are smart enough to know that, when you're there by yourself, all you are doing is harming yourself. ...
"We are a natural supplier of agricultural supplies to Cuba. The cost of transportation from Europe to Cuba is about $25 a ton. Costs from a port in the United States is $6 or $7 dollars a ton. There's a natural opportunity for us, and we ought to take advantage of that."
| 
