Beware of trading with Castro's Cuba

October 24, 2003 | St. Paul Pioneer Press
by Frank Calzon

On Oct. 14, state legislators Sandy Pappas and Phyllis Kahn wrote that U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., should "for the sake of Cuba and the people of Minnesota" reconsider his position that "this is not the time to get rid of the embargo (against Cuba), not the time to get rid of the travel ban."

At one time Sen. Coleman favored lifting U.S. trade restrictions on Cuba, but today he is absolutely right that lifting the embargo will not help Minnesota but will do great harm to those in Cuba trying to change Fidel Castro's despotic, Communist government. Sen. Coleman made that judgment after traveling to Cuba and meeting with mothers of Castro's political prisoners.
While some say U.S. policy toward Cuba is fashioned to curry favor with Florida's Cuban-American voters, the issues are more complex than that. Nine American presidents have supported restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba.

Since 2001 Havana has been buying American grain, food and medicine on a cash-and-carry basis. But having destroyed Cuba's economy, Castro's Communist government is now broke but trying to bolster itself by campaigning to get the U.S. government to extend trade credits. That would mean American taxpayers pick up the bill when Cuba can't pay for what it buys.

Cuban defaults are inevitable. Half of Cuba's sugar mills are now closed and in 2001 Russia shuttered its Havana spy facility and cut off the $200 million a year it was paying Cuba. France, Spain and Italy have suspended official credits. In July 2002 Reuters reported that, "Direct foreign investment in Cuba plummeted to $39.8 million in 2001 from

$488 million the year before." Mexico's Bancomext, which is owed more than $400 million by Havana, has recently taken action to freeze Cuban assets in at least three countries to pressure Havana to resume debt payments.

President Bush characterizes proposals that the U.S. finance Cuba's purchases of agricultural commodities as "a foreign aid program in disguise" benefiting an openly anti-American regime. Secretary of State Colin Powell recently wrote to a congressional committee warning that "Trade by other nations with Cuba has brought no change to Cuba's despotic practices, and it has frequently proved to be an unprofitable enterprise." The simple fact is that all trade with Cuba, indeed all commerce in Cuba, is routed through the Castro government. Castro's government sets prices, rations food and other goods and issues all paychecks.

The right of Americans to travel also must be weighed against the wisdom of subsidizing a regime that supports international terrorism, suppresses human rights, and poses a security threat to the United States. The State Department lists Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran as supporters of terrorism. Tourist dollars support Cuba's military and security forces.

In this country we learn to be wary of con men in the free market. A policy of shifting trade with Cuba from a cash-and-carry basis to credits and export insurance would be tantamount to forcing taxpayers to invest in Enron and WorldCom just before their collapse. American taxpayers aren't being called upon to bail out those companies and should not be called on to bail out the head of an unchanging communist regime.
No doubt Pappas and Kahn mean well, but it is they, not the senator, who should reappraise their position.

Frank Calzon is Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes human rights and democracy for Cuba.