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Dave Salmonsen is the Senior Director of Congressional Relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, and he was one of four speakers at GBD's September 10 colloquium on Cuba. Indeed, his position was somewhat special in that he represents one of the few groups of Americans are who are allowed to sell things to Cuba today, namely, U.S. farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural producers. Poultry producers are in that group, and so far they are its biggest winners. Poultry products account for roughly half of U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba, Mr. Salmonsen said.
Such as it is, the current trade is a 21st Century phenomenon. The embargo that was codified in the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 shut down just about all trade. At the end of the Clinton Administration, those restrictions were eased up a bit with the passage of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000, which allowed the sale of food and medicines to Cuba, but only on a cash basis.
Since that act went into effect, U.S. farmers have been making sales to Cuba, but, as Mr. Salmonsen pointed out, their products account for a relatively small portion of the nearly $2 billion that Cuba spends each year on imported food. This chart from the U.S. Department of Agriculture makes the point:
As Mr. Salmonsen explained it:
"Trade [with Cuba] has waxed and waned. It grew up to a high point of a little over $700 billion dollars a year in 2008. In the wake of some severe hurricanes, there was a lot of need for some quick food shipments. And since then it's stayed around ... mostly over $300 to $350 million. This past year it was some $280 million dollars."
As for those 2008 hurricanes, there were three of them in a row: Gustav in August, Ike in September, and Paloma in November.
But what of the other years? Why have U.S. sales been so much less than they might have been under more normal conditions. Here is some of what Dave Salmonsen said on that score:
"You know, in my job with the American Farm Bureau, a lot of what I do is talk to our state organizations when they come to town to lobby. ... [And] it is so interesting what people are concerned about in different parts of the country.
"When you're talking to people from the Dakotas, Kansas, you know, the fact that ... Cuba hasn't bought any wheat since 2011 from the U.S. That comes up. Why can't we get more wheat into Cuba? Why aren't they buying our wheat? Well, they're buying from Canada; they're buying from Europe. ...
"They haven't bought rice from the U.S., Cuba hasn't since 2008. Why aren't they buying [our] rice? Well, they're buying rice from Brazil or China or Vietnam or somebody else. Obviously, we're just not as competitive in those regions, and they [the U.S. growers] point to ... these trade financing issues, other things that ... just don't allow us to get the product there and to be as competitive as we want to be to open those markets. So that's ... the push you get from those states: ... Why? Why? Why?
"Okay, what does ag need to do to do better in the Cuban market? Well, we can try and get better regulations with this limited exemption to the embargo and what the Office of Foreign Assets Control is doing or trying to do I think helps. But at some point there's only so far you can go with that. ...
"Normal trade [means] having normal banking relationships, having, you know, respected letters of credit, to allow trade to normally flow, without barriers to that. Normal shipping and all of those things that really will come someday with trying to change our embargo rules for lack of a better term. And that's ultimately where we think we need to go. And what we're advocating for is to have a normal trading relationship. Then we can be competitive. And then, I think, we can get a greater share of what can be a growing market.
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