CQ WEEKLY – VANTAGE POINT
March 7, 2009 – 2:30 p.m.
Cuba’s Smoldering Brand Wars
By Shawn Zeller, CQ Staff
American businesses by and large hope that President Obama and Democrats in Congress will loosen the American embargo on trade with Cuba, which they see as a potentially lucrative market for their goods. But for U.S. companies that have trademark disputes with Cuban business rivals, the issue isn’t so simple.
Consider the case of the General Cigar Co. Inc. of Richmond, Va., which since the late 1990s has sold Cohiba brand cigars in the United States.
Cohiba, of course, is also Cuba’s premier brand and was reportedly a favorite of Fidel Castro before he stopped smoking in the mid-1980s. But Habanos S.A., the state-owned tobacco company, never registered Cohiba — the word Christopher Columbus says he was taught for “tobacco” by the native Cubans he met in 1492 — as the trademark in the United States. Even so, when General Cigar rolled out its own Cohiba brand in 1997, Habanos sued. After a nine-year court battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the now 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba barred such a trademark challenge.
Granted, both companies use different logos. The Cuban brand features a black and white checkerboard above an orange stripe with the word Cohiba in block type in between. The Virginia brand’s label features Cohiba in black, gold or silver block type with the center of the “O” in red.
Even so, “the lifting of the embargo would potentially create turmoil over who owns those rights,” says Ignacio E. Sanchez, a lobbyist with DLA Piper who represents General Cigar.
The issue is serious business. General Cigar has spent nearly $3.5 million on Washington lobbying in the past decade, much of it on the Cuba debate. And the company isn’t alone. Sanchez estimates that there are $2 billion worth of claims against the Cuban government over property seized after the island’s revolution 50 years ago.
One of the most famous disputes pits rum distiller Bacardi U.S.A. Inc. against French distiller Pernod Ricard over the rights to the renowned Havana Club brand. Pernod Ricard entered into a joint venture in 1993 with the Cuban government to sell Havana Club outside the United States, but Bacardi claims to own the name.
In 1998, Congress included language in a catchall spending bill barring Pernod Ricard from registering the trademark in the United States, something that would enable the Paris-based company to sell Havana Club here if the embargo were lifted.
Both companies have maintained big lobbying operations in recent years to try to protect that provision, in Bacardi’s case, or repeal it, in Pernod Ricard’s.
Though there seems to be little momentum in Congress to lift the embargo, Democrats are pushing to loosen it. The $410 billion omnibus spending bill for the rest of this fiscal year, which is on course to clear this week, would lift Bush-era travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to visit relatives on the island and lift restrictions on U.S. exporters who want to sell food and medicine to Cuba. Under a 2000 law, U.S. companies may sell such products, though regulations imposed by President George W. Bush have curtailed the trade.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000003069331
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Embargo Costs to US
The Costs of the Embargo
The 47-year-old blockade now costs the United States far more than it costs Cuba.
By Margot Pepper
This article is from the January/February 2009 issue of Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice available at http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0309pepper.html
On January 1, Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista regime. For 47 of those years, Cuba has suffered under what U.S. officials call an “embargo” against the Caribbean nation. Cubans’ name for the embargo—el bloqueo (the blockade)—is arguably more apt, given that the U.S. policy also aims to restrict other countries from engaging in business with Cuba.
What’s surprising is that while the blockade continues to take a considerable toll on the Cuban people, it costs the United States far more, and the gap is widening. Given the economic meltdown, it is only fitting that a growing chorus of diverse voices is calling for an end to the costly vendetta.
The original justification for the embargo was Cuba’s expropriation of “some $1.8 billion worth of U.S.-owned property,” according to the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. In turn, Cubans argue that early in the century, the United States had seized control of 70% of Cuban land and three-quarters of Cuba’s primary industry. By the 1950s, as a result of U.S. colonialism and preceding Spanish rule, five out of six Cubans lived in shacks or were homeless, 80% of Havana suffered from hunger and unemployment, and two out of three Cuban children didn’t attend school. Cubans say such conditions left them no recourse but to expel the Yanquis, just as the Yankees had expelled the British in 1776.
Today, U.S. public opinion is turning against the embargo. A majority—52%—wants the embargo to be lifted, with 67% favoring an immediate end to the travel restrictions, according to the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF), a nonprofit run by a former U.S. ambassador. Recent polls have even shown that a majority of Miami Cubans now support lifting the embargo.
These percentages might be even higher if the U.S. public were aware that the blockade is actually costing them more than the Cubans, something that is finally beginning to dawn on the U.S. business community. Representatives of a dozen leading U.S. business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter in December urging Barack Obama to scrap the embargo. The letter pegs the cost to the U.S. economy at $1.2 billion per year. The CPF’s estimates are much higher: up to $4.84 billion annually in lost sales and exports. The Cuban government estimates the loss to Cuba at about $685 million annually. Thus the blockade costs the United States up to $4.155 billion more a year than it costs Cuba.
The U. S. government also spends $27 million each year to broadcast Radio and TV MartÃ, even though the television signal is effectively blocked by the Cuban government. The largely futile propaganda effort has cost U.S. taxpayers half a billion dollars over the last twenty years, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
Beyond the economic costs, the blockade has deprived U.S. citizens of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs. Cuba has developed the first meningitis B vaccine; cures for the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa; a preservative for un-refrigerated milk; and PPG, a cholesterol-reducing drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effect: increased sexual potency. And last summer Cuba released CimaVax EGF, the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. The drug triggers an immune response that extends life in lung cancer patients and can ease breathing and restore appetite.
The blockade has always cost the United States more, but the gap has widened considerably. By 1992, U.S. businesses had lost over $30 billion in trade over the previous thirty years, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins. At that time, Cuba’s loss for the same period was smaller, but not by much: $28.6 billion, according to Cuba’s Institute of Economic Research. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba’s diversification and increased trade with other countries has widened the gap between the costs to Cuba and the costs to the United States.
While the dollar cost to the United States may be higher, Cuba has suffered a greater economic hit relative to its size and resources. Although lifting the blockade will inevitably boost Cubans’ living standard, the Cuban economy will still be saddled with its colonial legacy as a mono-crop producer. Unequal trade terms enforced by treaties and organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund maintain formerly colonized countries as underdeveloped purveyors of raw materials, subsidizing the high standard of living in industrialized countries. It is useful to remember this uneven playing field whenever making U.S.-Cuba comparisons.
Regardless of all these obstacles, the socialist island has managed to provide its inhabitants with what the United States, one of the most affluent countries in the world, so far has not: free top-notch health care, free university and graduate school education, and subsidized food and utilities. Meanwhile, 36.2 million people go hungry in the United States and 47 million lack health coverage. Indeed, Cuba compares favorably to the United States on a number of basic social factors:
* Housing: There is virtually no homelessness in Cuba. Thanks to the 1960 Urban Reform law, 85% of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their mortgages. Mortgage payments can’t exceed 10% of the combined household income.
* Employment: Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8% according to CIA data, compared with 7.6% (and rising) in the United States. One factor contributing to Cuba’s low unemployment is undoubtedly the 350,000 jobs that have been recently created by the burgeoning sustainable urban agriculture program, one of the most successful in the world, according to U.S.-based economist Sinan Koont.
* Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States’ rate (97%), according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
* Infant mortality: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (4.7 per 1000 live births) than the United States’ (6.0).
* Prisons: Cuba even does better on prisons. Its rate of incarceration—estimated at around 487 per 100,000 by the UNDP—is among the highest in the world, yet it is considerably lower than the U.S. rate of 738 per 100,000. Now that the number of political prisoners Cuba locks up is in decline, according to a February Associated Press news release, there is even less justification for the blockade.
The fact that a poor, formerly colonized country can meet its citizens’ basic needs, while outperforming the United States on key measures, underscores how inexpensively the United States could follow suit. Cuba’s example could prove instructive to President Obama and his constituents as the United States faces economic collapse. And herein may lie the real motivation of the blockade, and its most significant cost: it keeps people from making such comparisons first-hand. If the only concrete threat the Cuban Revolution poses to the United States these days is the threat of a good example, isn’t it high time we bury the blockade?
Margot Pepper is the Mexican-born author of Through the Wall: A Year in Havana, a memoir about working in Cuba during the “Special Period.” Her work has appeared in the Utne Reader and Monthly Review and on Z-net, Counterpunch, and elsewhere, and can be found at margotpepper.com and at freedomvoices.org.
Sources: Anita Snow, “Reported Number of Cuban Political Prisoners Dips,” Associated Press, February 2, 2009; Brendan Sainsbury, “Cuba—Health Without Wealth.” Dan Griswold, Cuba and the United States in the 21st Century, speech at Rice University, Houston, October 12, 2005; Teddy Kapur and Alastair Smith, Housing Policy in Castro’s Cuba, May 16, 2002, housingfinance.org; Cuba Vs. Bloqueo website; Jill Hamberg, “Cuban Housing Policy”, Transformation and Struggle: Cuba Faces the 1990s, ed. Sandor Halebsky and John M. Kirk, New York, 1990; Larry Luxner, “Sally Cowal: from ambassador to anti-embargo activist”, BNET Business Network, September. 2002; Patricia, Grogg, “Health-Cuba: Lung Cancer Vaccine Available”, IPS, June 26, 2008 (ipsnews.net); Rory Carroll, “Cuba approves first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer”, The Guardian, June 26, 2008; Sinan Koont, “The Urban Agriculture of Havana,” Monthly Review, January 2009; reports from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the U.N. Development Programme.
The 47-year-old blockade now costs the United States far more than it costs Cuba.
By Margot Pepper
This article is from the January/February 2009 issue of Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice available at http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0309pepper.html
On January 1, Cuba celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista regime. For 47 of those years, Cuba has suffered under what U.S. officials call an “embargo” against the Caribbean nation. Cubans’ name for the embargo—el bloqueo (the blockade)—is arguably more apt, given that the U.S. policy also aims to restrict other countries from engaging in business with Cuba.
What’s surprising is that while the blockade continues to take a considerable toll on the Cuban people, it costs the United States far more, and the gap is widening. Given the economic meltdown, it is only fitting that a growing chorus of diverse voices is calling for an end to the costly vendetta.
The original justification for the embargo was Cuba’s expropriation of “some $1.8 billion worth of U.S.-owned property,” according to the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. In turn, Cubans argue that early in the century, the United States had seized control of 70% of Cuban land and three-quarters of Cuba’s primary industry. By the 1950s, as a result of U.S. colonialism and preceding Spanish rule, five out of six Cubans lived in shacks or were homeless, 80% of Havana suffered from hunger and unemployment, and two out of three Cuban children didn’t attend school. Cubans say such conditions left them no recourse but to expel the Yanquis, just as the Yankees had expelled the British in 1776.
Today, U.S. public opinion is turning against the embargo. A majority—52%—wants the embargo to be lifted, with 67% favoring an immediate end to the travel restrictions, according to the Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF), a nonprofit run by a former U.S. ambassador. Recent polls have even shown that a majority of Miami Cubans now support lifting the embargo.
These percentages might be even higher if the U.S. public were aware that the blockade is actually costing them more than the Cubans, something that is finally beginning to dawn on the U.S. business community. Representatives of a dozen leading U.S. business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter in December urging Barack Obama to scrap the embargo. The letter pegs the cost to the U.S. economy at $1.2 billion per year. The CPF’s estimates are much higher: up to $4.84 billion annually in lost sales and exports. The Cuban government estimates the loss to Cuba at about $685 million annually. Thus the blockade costs the United States up to $4.155 billion more a year than it costs Cuba.
The U. S. government also spends $27 million each year to broadcast Radio and TV MartÃ, even though the television signal is effectively blocked by the Cuban government. The largely futile propaganda effort has cost U.S. taxpayers half a billion dollars over the last twenty years, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
Beyond the economic costs, the blockade has deprived U.S. citizens of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs. Cuba has developed the first meningitis B vaccine; cures for the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa; a preservative for un-refrigerated milk; and PPG, a cholesterol-reducing drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effect: increased sexual potency. And last summer Cuba released CimaVax EGF, the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer. The drug triggers an immune response that extends life in lung cancer patients and can ease breathing and restore appetite.
The blockade has always cost the United States more, but the gap has widened considerably. By 1992, U.S. businesses had lost over $30 billion in trade over the previous thirty years, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins. At that time, Cuba’s loss for the same period was smaller, but not by much: $28.6 billion, according to Cuba’s Institute of Economic Research. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba’s diversification and increased trade with other countries has widened the gap between the costs to Cuba and the costs to the United States.
While the dollar cost to the United States may be higher, Cuba has suffered a greater economic hit relative to its size and resources. Although lifting the blockade will inevitably boost Cubans’ living standard, the Cuban economy will still be saddled with its colonial legacy as a mono-crop producer. Unequal trade terms enforced by treaties and organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund maintain formerly colonized countries as underdeveloped purveyors of raw materials, subsidizing the high standard of living in industrialized countries. It is useful to remember this uneven playing field whenever making U.S.-Cuba comparisons.
Regardless of all these obstacles, the socialist island has managed to provide its inhabitants with what the United States, one of the most affluent countries in the world, so far has not: free top-notch health care, free university and graduate school education, and subsidized food and utilities. Meanwhile, 36.2 million people go hungry in the United States and 47 million lack health coverage. Indeed, Cuba compares favorably to the United States on a number of basic social factors:
* Housing: There is virtually no homelessness in Cuba. Thanks to the 1960 Urban Reform law, 85% of Cubans own their own homes and pay no property taxes or interest on their mortgages. Mortgage payments can’t exceed 10% of the combined household income.
* Employment: Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8% according to CIA data, compared with 7.6% (and rising) in the United States. One factor contributing to Cuba’s low unemployment is undoubtedly the 350,000 jobs that have been recently created by the burgeoning sustainable urban agriculture program, one of the most successful in the world, according to U.S.-based economist Sinan Koont.
* Literacy: The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8%) is higher than the United States’ rate (97%), according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
* Infant mortality: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (4.7 per 1000 live births) than the United States’ (6.0).
* Prisons: Cuba even does better on prisons. Its rate of incarceration—estimated at around 487 per 100,000 by the UNDP—is among the highest in the world, yet it is considerably lower than the U.S. rate of 738 per 100,000. Now that the number of political prisoners Cuba locks up is in decline, according to a February Associated Press news release, there is even less justification for the blockade.
The fact that a poor, formerly colonized country can meet its citizens’ basic needs, while outperforming the United States on key measures, underscores how inexpensively the United States could follow suit. Cuba’s example could prove instructive to President Obama and his constituents as the United States faces economic collapse. And herein may lie the real motivation of the blockade, and its most significant cost: it keeps people from making such comparisons first-hand. If the only concrete threat the Cuban Revolution poses to the United States these days is the threat of a good example, isn’t it high time we bury the blockade?
Margot Pepper is the Mexican-born author of Through the Wall: A Year in Havana, a memoir about working in Cuba during the “Special Period.” Her work has appeared in the Utne Reader and Monthly Review and on Z-net, Counterpunch, and elsewhere, and can be found at margotpepper.com and at freedomvoices.org.
Sources: Anita Snow, “Reported Number of Cuban Political Prisoners Dips,” Associated Press, February 2, 2009; Brendan Sainsbury, “Cuba—Health Without Wealth.” Dan Griswold, Cuba and the United States in the 21st Century, speech at Rice University, Houston, October 12, 2005; Teddy Kapur and Alastair Smith, Housing Policy in Castro’s Cuba, May 16, 2002, housingfinance.org; Cuba Vs. Bloqueo website; Jill Hamberg, “Cuban Housing Policy”, Transformation and Struggle: Cuba Faces the 1990s, ed. Sandor Halebsky and John M. Kirk, New York, 1990; Larry Luxner, “Sally Cowal: from ambassador to anti-embargo activist”, BNET Business Network, September. 2002; Patricia, Grogg, “Health-Cuba: Lung Cancer Vaccine Available”, IPS, June 26, 2008 (ipsnews.net); Rory Carroll, “Cuba approves first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer”, The Guardian, June 26, 2008; Sinan Koont, “The Urban Agriculture of Havana,” Monthly Review, January 2009; reports from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the U.N. Development Programme.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Cuba No Threat to US
Annual Threat Assessment of the
Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Dennis C. Blair
Director of National Intelligence
25 February 2009 http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090225_testimony.pdf
Cuba
President Raul Castro’s record since formally taking power in February 2008 indicates
his primary objective in the coming year will be to make Cuba’s dysfunctional socialist economy
more efficient. His task has been made more difficult, however, by the extensive damage to the
country’s already weak agricultural sector and infrastructure by three major and successive
hurricanes last year. The global economic downturn will further slow growth, diminishing the
regime’s options for addressing public dissatisfaction with living conditions.
Havana’s competent and immediate response to the hurricanes underscores the
effectiveness of regime controls and indicates that it remains capable of preventing a
spontaneous mass migration. Nevertheless, we judge that at a minimum the annual flow of
Cuban migrants to the United States will stay at the same high levels of about 35,000 legal and
illegal migrants annually that have prevailed over the past several years.
Raul almost certainly will continue to proceed cautiously on any reforms to the economy
in order to maintain elite consensus and avoid raising public expectations beyond what he is able
or willing to deliver. We have seen no indication in the modest changes he has implemented that
he intends to abandon core Communist economic principles, such as state ownership of
production. On the political front, all indications are that Raul will continue to deny elements of
civil society and pro-democracy dissidents the exercise of free expression.
Venezuela’s preferential terms for oil sales and payments for Cuban medical personnel
and other technical specialists will remain Cuba’s economic lifeline, despite Cuba’s efforts to
attract other sources of foreign investment from countries such as China and Russia. President
Chavez probably will prioritize aid to Havana over other foreign policy commitments.
We assess Raul will continue his efforts to bolster Havana’s international legitimacy by
projecting a more moderate political image. Nevertheless, Cuba almost certainly will remain
heavily involved behind-the-scenes in counseling and supporting authoritarian populist
governments in Latin America and otherwise seeking to undermine US influence across the
region.
…
Cuba, though an economic basket case, can still influence the Latin American left because of its socalled “anti-imperialist” stance.
…
Venezuela and Cuba have been particularly adept at parlaying provision of charitable
medical services to nationals of other countries into support in international forums such as the
United Nations.
Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Dennis C. Blair
Director of National Intelligence
25 February 2009 http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090225_testimony.pdf
Cuba
President Raul Castro’s record since formally taking power in February 2008 indicates
his primary objective in the coming year will be to make Cuba’s dysfunctional socialist economy
more efficient. His task has been made more difficult, however, by the extensive damage to the
country’s already weak agricultural sector and infrastructure by three major and successive
hurricanes last year. The global economic downturn will further slow growth, diminishing the
regime’s options for addressing public dissatisfaction with living conditions.
Havana’s competent and immediate response to the hurricanes underscores the
effectiveness of regime controls and indicates that it remains capable of preventing a
spontaneous mass migration. Nevertheless, we judge that at a minimum the annual flow of
Cuban migrants to the United States will stay at the same high levels of about 35,000 legal and
illegal migrants annually that have prevailed over the past several years.
Raul almost certainly will continue to proceed cautiously on any reforms to the economy
in order to maintain elite consensus and avoid raising public expectations beyond what he is able
or willing to deliver. We have seen no indication in the modest changes he has implemented that
he intends to abandon core Communist economic principles, such as state ownership of
production. On the political front, all indications are that Raul will continue to deny elements of
civil society and pro-democracy dissidents the exercise of free expression.
Venezuela’s preferential terms for oil sales and payments for Cuban medical personnel
and other technical specialists will remain Cuba’s economic lifeline, despite Cuba’s efforts to
attract other sources of foreign investment from countries such as China and Russia. President
Chavez probably will prioritize aid to Havana over other foreign policy commitments.
We assess Raul will continue his efforts to bolster Havana’s international legitimacy by
projecting a more moderate political image. Nevertheless, Cuba almost certainly will remain
heavily involved behind-the-scenes in counseling and supporting authoritarian populist
governments in Latin America and otherwise seeking to undermine US influence across the
region.
…
Cuba, though an economic basket case, can still influence the Latin American left because of its socalled “anti-imperialist” stance.
…
Venezuela and Cuba have been particularly adept at parlaying provision of charitable
medical services to nationals of other countries into support in international forums such as the
United Nations.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act HR 874
Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act (Introduced in House)
HR 874 IH
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 874
To allow travel between the United States and Cuba.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 4, 2009
Mr. DELAHUNT (for himself, Mr. FLAKE, Ms. DELAURO, Mrs. EMERSON, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. MORAN of Kansas, Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland, Mr. PAUL, and Mr. FARR) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
________________________________________
A BILL
To allow travel between the United States and Cuba.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act'.
SEC. 2. TRAVEL TO CUBA.
On and after the date of the enactment of this Act, and subject to section 3--
(1) the President may not regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly, travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or legal residents, or any of the transactions incident to such travel; and
(2) any regulation in effect on such date of enactment that regulates or prohibits travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or legal residents or transactions incident to such travel shall cease to have any force or effect.
SEC.
3. EXCEPTIONS.
Section 2 shall not apply in a case in which the United States is at war with Cuba, armed hostilities between the two countries are in progress, or there is imminent danger to the public health or the physical safety of United States travelers.
SEC.
4. APPLICABILITY.
This Act applies to actions taken by the President before the date of the enactment of this Act that are in effect on such date of enactment, and to actions taken on or after such date.
SEC. 5. INAPPLICABILITY OF OTHER PROVISIONS.
The provisions of this Act apply notwithstanding section 102(h) of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 (22 U.S.C. 6032(h)) and section 910(b) of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7210(b)).
Rep DeLauro, Rosa L. [CT-3] - 2/4/2009
Rep Edwards, Donna F. [MD-4] - 2/4/2009
Rep Emerson, Jo Ann [MO-8] - 2/4/2009
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 2/4/2009
Rep Flake, Jeff [AZ-6] - 2/4/2009
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 2/4/2009
Rep Moran, Jerry [KS-1] - 2/4/2009
Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] - 2/4/2009
HR 874 IH
111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 874
To allow travel between the United States and Cuba.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 4, 2009
Mr. DELAHUNT (for himself, Mr. FLAKE, Ms. DELAURO, Mrs. EMERSON, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. MORAN of Kansas, Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland, Mr. PAUL, and Mr. FARR) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
________________________________________
A BILL
To allow travel between the United States and Cuba.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act'.
SEC. 2. TRAVEL TO CUBA.
On and after the date of the enactment of this Act, and subject to section 3--
(1) the President may not regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly, travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or legal residents, or any of the transactions incident to such travel; and
(2) any regulation in effect on such date of enactment that regulates or prohibits travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or legal residents or transactions incident to such travel shall cease to have any force or effect.
SEC.
3. EXCEPTIONS.
Section 2 shall not apply in a case in which the United States is at war with Cuba, armed hostilities between the two countries are in progress, or there is imminent danger to the public health or the physical safety of United States travelers.
SEC.
4. APPLICABILITY.
This Act applies to actions taken by the President before the date of the enactment of this Act that are in effect on such date of enactment, and to actions taken on or after such date.
SEC. 5. INAPPLICABILITY OF OTHER PROVISIONS.
The provisions of this Act apply notwithstanding section 102(h) of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 (22 U.S.C. 6032(h)) and section 910(b) of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7210(b)).
Rep DeLauro, Rosa L. [CT-3] - 2/4/2009
Rep Edwards, Donna F. [MD-4] - 2/4/2009
Rep Emerson, Jo Ann [MO-8] - 2/4/2009
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] - 2/4/2009
Rep Flake, Jeff [AZ-6] - 2/4/2009
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] - 2/4/2009
Rep Moran, Jerry [KS-1] - 2/4/2009
Rep Paul, Ron [TX-14] - 2/4/2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Russian Aid to Cuba
Russian aid to Cuba suddenly balloons in size
All loans and aid to Cuba, agreed on Friday between Dmitry Medvedev and Raul Castro, now total $354 million rather than the planned $20 million.
Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov reported that a state loan to Cuba to purchase Russian agricultural and construction equipment as part of an agreement endorsed together with his Cuban counterpart, amounted to $150 million, which Cuba will get over a period of nine years at 7% p.a. (the first two years will be a grace period, while during the next seven years the body of the debt will be repaid).
Another agreement is expected to allocate $20 million for 10 years at 5% p.a. (with four grace years), Shatalov said. He said agreement had been reached for Cuba to get another $100 million to lease Russian equipment. The deal will be formalized shortly.
According to a Foreign Ministry source, it was planned previously to grant Cuba only a $20 million loan, but unexpectedly, a few hours before the deal was signed,
Medvedev and Castro agreed on the allocation of a further $150 million and $100 million.
The sides also agreed on a VEB export loan worth $47 million, to be used by Ilyushin Finance Co. (IFC) to supply a Tu-204SE cargo airliner to Cuba's Aviaimport SA.
According to Andrei Lipovetsky, an IFC spokesman, this is the fourth Tu-204 being exported to Cuba. Russia has already delivered three Il-96 passenger jets there. This pre-export loan is a way of assisting Russia's aircraft industry, said Andrei Mazurov, a VEB spokesman.
Free food aid for Cuba will total another $37 million, Shatalov said. There are two tranches of 25,000 metric tons and 100,000 metric tons of grain ($7 million and $30 million, respectively). The first is ready for shipment.
The previous Russian loan allocated to Cuba under the 2006 agreement amounted to $335 million. According to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who heads the Russian delegation on the intergovernmental commission, it has virtually all been spent.
A $20 million loan is being granted to repair and buy spare parts for military equipment supplied during the Soviet era, said a Defense Ministry source.
Vyacheslav Davidenko, a Rosoboronexport spokesman, said military technical cooperation with Cuba is small scale, but steady.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090202/119921943.html
All loans and aid to Cuba, agreed on Friday between Dmitry Medvedev and Raul Castro, now total $354 million rather than the planned $20 million.
Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov reported that a state loan to Cuba to purchase Russian agricultural and construction equipment as part of an agreement endorsed together with his Cuban counterpart, amounted to $150 million, which Cuba will get over a period of nine years at 7% p.a. (the first two years will be a grace period, while during the next seven years the body of the debt will be repaid).
Another agreement is expected to allocate $20 million for 10 years at 5% p.a. (with four grace years), Shatalov said. He said agreement had been reached for Cuba to get another $100 million to lease Russian equipment. The deal will be formalized shortly.
According to a Foreign Ministry source, it was planned previously to grant Cuba only a $20 million loan, but unexpectedly, a few hours before the deal was signed,
Medvedev and Castro agreed on the allocation of a further $150 million and $100 million.
The sides also agreed on a VEB export loan worth $47 million, to be used by Ilyushin Finance Co. (IFC) to supply a Tu-204SE cargo airliner to Cuba's Aviaimport SA.
According to Andrei Lipovetsky, an IFC spokesman, this is the fourth Tu-204 being exported to Cuba. Russia has already delivered three Il-96 passenger jets there. This pre-export loan is a way of assisting Russia's aircraft industry, said Andrei Mazurov, a VEB spokesman.
Free food aid for Cuba will total another $37 million, Shatalov said. There are two tranches of 25,000 metric tons and 100,000 metric tons of grain ($7 million and $30 million, respectively). The first is ready for shipment.
The previous Russian loan allocated to Cuba under the 2006 agreement amounted to $335 million. According to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who heads the Russian delegation on the intergovernmental commission, it has virtually all been spent.
A $20 million loan is being granted to repair and buy spare parts for military equipment supplied during the Soviet era, said a Defense Ministry source.
Vyacheslav Davidenko, a Rosoboronexport spokesman, said military technical cooperation with Cuba is small scale, but steady.
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090202/119921943.html
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Visitor from China, Cuba's # 2 Trading Partner
China's Hu strikes deals in Cuba
 Member of Cuba's Chinese community were on hand to greet Mr Hu |
President Hu Jintao of China is set to meet Cuban leader Raul Castro later in the day as part of his multi-stop tour of the US and Latin America.
The two nations are agreeing multiple deals on trade and loans as China bid to strengthen its links with Latin American and Caribbean nations.
Mr Hu was met at the airport by senior Cuban officials and cheering members of the local Chinese community.
Cuban TV broke into Monday's nightly news to go live to Mr Hu's arrival.
China is now Cuba's biggest trading partner after Venezuela, with bilateral trade at $2.3bn (£1.5bn) in 2007.
And across Latin America, China has seen its trade climb from $13bn in 2000 to more than $100bn in 2007.
"My visit is aimed at increasing friendship and co-operation between our two nations, and working together with our Cuban comrades to build a promising future," Mr Hu said in a statement.
Loans due
Throughout the Cold War Cuba was traditionally a much firmer ally of the Soviet Union than China, but that changed when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving Cuba almost bankrupt, says the BBC's Michael Voss in Havana.
 |
Restructuring their repayment is likely to be one topic on the agenda when the two leaders meet on Tuesday, our correspondent says.
Other agreements already signed or set to be signed reportedly include Chinese purchases of nickel and sugar from Cuba, Chinese-backed energy prospecting in Cuba, and other deals in education and health.
Mr Hu arrived in Cuba from Costa Rica, where he signed co-operation and investment agreements and discussed setting up a free-trade agreement between the two countries.
He will travel on from Cuba to Peru where he will attend the Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) summit in Lima on 21 and 22 November.
But China is not the only power interested in securing greater access to the raw materials and other resources that Latin America offers. President Hu will be followed next week by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose tour of the region includes a visit to Cuba.
Cuban critique
Although both Cuba and China are run by Communist parties, they have pursued very different economic models.
China has adopted market economics while Cuba still has a command system with most of the economy under state control.
On Monday, Cuban state newspaper Granma praised the Chinese model but highlighted "an unequal distribution of wealth in the country, marked difference between city and countryside and the erosion of the environment".
When Mr Hu last visited Cuba in 2004 Fidel Castro was still in charge of the country.
His younger brother, Raul Castro, officially took over the presidency in February 2008 and has introduced some reforms.
Raul Castro saw China as a potential model for Cuba to follow, says BBC regional analyst Emilio San Pedro.
China, a modern-day economic powerhouse in a world of financial uncertainty, sees Cuba with its need for investment and political support as an important ally in its long-range plans to strengthen and expand its ties with the rest of Latin America, he adds.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Lula Expects Raul at Summit in Brazil
Raul Castro to attend December summit in Brazil: Lula
HAVANA (AFP) — Cuban President Raul Castro will attend a summit in Brazil in December, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said here Friday, marking the Cuban leader's first international trip since taking over from brother Fidel Castro two years ago.
"We are pleased to learn that finally his excellency will travel to Brazil to participate in the first meeting of Latin American and Caribbean nations, without interference from any other power," Lula said during an inauguration ceremony for a Brazilian business venture in Havana.
If the visit is confirmed by Havana, it would mark the first foray outside the island nation by Castro, 77, since taking the reins of power from Fidel Castro in July 2006 when the elder leader underwent intestinal surgery.
Raul Castro officially succeeded his ailing 82-year-old brother last February when Fidel announced ahead of an election that he was stepping down, after staying in power for nearly 50 years despite a US trade embargo in full force since 1962.
Lula is friends with Fidel Castro and he had not ruled out a meeting with the Cuban leader before departing for Brasilia at 3:30pm local time (2030 GMT).
The Brazilian president arrived in Cuba on Thursday and held talks with Raul Castro, to whom he "renewed the invitation" to visit Brazil and help with the first-ever integration and development summit for Latin America and the Caribbean on December 16 and 17 near Salvador de Bahia, according to an official statement.
The text hailed the "positive developments in bilateral relations" in several fields as well as a sharing of mutual regional and multilateral interests.
Economic and commercial ties between the two countries were given a boost with Lula's first visit this year to Cuba, in January, and when a senior official visited in May to firm up 10 business agreements.
According to official Cuban figures, bilateral trade rose to 450 million dollars in 2007, making Brazil Cuba's second largest trading partner in South America after Venezuela.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyoZfsL2MRzLNwamVQC187wbe38Q
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