U.S. fine-tunes Cuba trade

Published Thursday, May 13, 1999, in the Miami Herald

U.S. fine-tunes Cuba trade

New rules allow some food sales, expand travel

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

Filling in the details on its latest Cuba policies, the Clinton administration has unveiled new regulations that allow limited sales of U.S. food and agricultural goods to Cuba and expand travel opportunities.

The 49 pages of carefully written rules, which will be made public today by the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Commerce and State, provide both hope and frustration for supporters and foes of the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

The regulations apply to several broad changes announced by President Clinton on Jan. 5 to promote academic, sports, cultural and scientific contacts with Cuba while continuing to isolate its Communist government.

``Pull all this together and it expands the flow of humanitarian assistance to Cuba and strengthens independent civil society, said R. Richard Newcomb, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Key to the regulations are Commerce Department rules that for the first time permit the sale of food, fertilizers, seeds, pesticides and herbicides to ``independent Cuban groups -- under severe limitations.

``This will be decided case by case, based on applications for sales to independent entities not controlled, owned or operated by the Cuban government or senior [Communist] Party officials, a U.S. official said.

Such tight language disappointed U.S. agricultural industry leaders who had hoped to open the Cuban market, but left others satisfied with a partial breach of the 37-year-old ban on all such sales to Cuba.

``History has shown that once a door had been opened, the door tends not to close, but only to swing wider said John Kavulich, director of the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

A thermostat

An official who helped draft the rules likened them to a thermostat, designed to permit U.S. groups and businessmen to explore all opportunities for expanding contacts in Cuba until they reach a ``cutoff point.

The eventual impact of the regulations will also depend on Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has often attacked Clinton's ``people-to-people diplomacy as a thinly disguised attempt to subvert his regime.

Castro has vowed that his government will not surrender its monopoly on imports, making it difficult to see how U.S. firms could sell food to ``independent Cubans without going through the government.

The new rules apply to everything from travel to Cuba to remittances:

Universities and nongovernmental organizations in the United States will be able to apply for two-year permits for travel to Cuba, to be used by any member. Such travelers now must apply for individual licenses for each trip.

Academic researchers enrolled in degree-granting institutions can travel to Cuba without prior U.S. approval, but may be asked to provide proof of their work when they return. They now need individual trip licenses.

The amount that U.S. visitors to Cuba can spend per day was increased from $100 to $185.

Anyone in the United States, not just Cuban exiles, will be allowed to remit up to $300 every three months to friends or relatives on the island, but not to senior Cuban government or party officials. U.S. groups, now banned from sending money, can seek special permission to send money to groups or individuals in Cuba.

A regulation requiring Cuban exiles to have ``an extreme humanitarian need to qualify for travel to Cuba was amended to remove the word ``extreme.

The process for approving nonimmigrant U.S. visas for Cubans on cultural or scientific exchanges will be significantly quickened.

Sanctions debate

Ironically, the regulations were finished and sent to the federal printers Tuesday just as the White House and Congress battled over the use of economic sanctions against other countries.

Senate Agricultural Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, has proposed a law that would standardize and tighten enforcement of U.S. economic sanctions on about a dozen countries.

But Clinton, under pressure from a U.S. agricultural industry hard hit by plummeting prices, recently announced he would resume food sales to Iran, Libya and Sudan, and try to avoid such sanctions in the future.

The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was turned into law by the Helms-Burton Law in 1996. It only permits changes in existing regulations, in essence permitting few significant changes.