Published on Thursday, April 1, 2010
By Jonathan J. Levin
WASHINGTON, USA (Bloomberg) -- The US House of Representatives may pass
a bill next month that would ease restrictions on agricultural exports
to Cuba and lift a ban on travel to the Communist island, the measure's
sponsor said.
Congressman Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture
Committee, said he needs backing from one more lawmaker to assure the
panel will approve the legislation. He expects to secure that pledge
after Congress's Easter recess, and for the measure to then get approval
by the full House.
"Cuba used to be one of our big markets," Peterson, a Minnesota
Democrat, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. The bill "would help
us get those markets back."
The US International Trade Commission estimates the US could supply as
much as two-thirds of Cuba's agricultural imports, up from the current
30 percent, if restrictions are eased, Peterson said in a committee
hearing this month. The bill would end a requirement that payments from
Cuba to US farmers go through a bank located in a third country and be
made all in cash, steps that make trade more difficult.
The US exported $528.5 million in food and agricultural products to Cuba
in 2009, according to the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Peterson's bill, known as the "Travel Restriction Reform and Export
Enhancement Act," is the latest House legislation seeking to end a
47-year prohibition on Americans traveling to Cuba. The "Freedom to
Travel to Cuba Act," sponsored by William Delahunt, Democrat from
Massachusetts, would ease travel restrictions without changing rules
about agricultural exports.
Versions of both bills are under consideration in the Senate.
"I don't think we'll be able to get the agriculture changes by
themselves," Peterson said. "There's a lot of support for lifting the
travel ban, and if you put that together with the agriculture, I think
we have enough votes to get it through the House."
Proposals to end travel restrictions to Cuba may lack the support needed
to pass as a stand-alone bill in the Senate, said Senator Byron Dorgan,
who introduced the Senate version of the "Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act."
Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, said he will seek to move the
legislation by attaching it as an amendment to another bill more likely
to get the 60 votes needed block a filibuster, he said today in a
telephone interview from Bismarck, North Dakota.
President Barack Obama said March 24 that he's seeking a "new era" in
relations with Cuba even as he denounced "deeply disturbing" human
rights violations by its government. Obama hasn't told congressional
Democrats where he stands on ending the travel ban, according to Peterson.
Obama last year eased restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba
and transferring money to relatives on the island. The US State
Department has also held talks in Havana with Cuban officials about
restoring mail service and cooperation on migration issues.
The island nation can handle an influx of American tourists if the bill
is passed, Cuba's Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said in a March 25
interview in Cancun, Mexico. He said the local tourism industry is
preparing, with at least 9 hotels scheduled to break ground by the end
of this year.
Tourism to Cuba increased 3.5 percent last year to 2.4 million visitors,
with 900,000 travelers from Canada leading the way, Jose Manuel Bisbe,
commercial director for the Tourism Ministry, said in an interview last
week in Havana.
Cuban Tourism Ministry officials were in Cancun last week to meet with
U.S. tourism industry professionals.
Dorgan said the arrest of American Alan Gross last December in Havana
may be an impediment to lifting the travel ban, and called on Cuban
officials to free the prisoner.
Gross, a US State Department contractor, is accused of working as a spy
after he distributed cellular phones and computers to Jewish groups on
the island to help them communicate with friends and relatives outside
Cuba. Gross's wife, Judy Gross, said her husband had done "nothing
wrong," according to a video statement reproduced on CNN's Web site.
"Over the years, as we get close to achieving something, the Cubans have
a way of poking Americans in the eye," Dorgan said."
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