Forward from mart.
Please distribute widely
END THE BLOCKADE!
FREE THE MIAMI FIVE!
NOW!!!
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| From: | "Karen Lee Wald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
| Subject: | tiny baby steps -- farm sales |
| Date: | Sun, 10 Mar 2002 19:33:58 -0800 |
HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
Don't be fooled by the rhetoric. What has been passed so far and what is being talked about by Republicans and Democrats is NOT a giant step forward --barely a baby step. What was approved, contrary to the language in the article below, is not TRADE in food and medicines, but SALE of food and medicines TO Cuba. A significant step will be made when the US Congress agrees to allow the two countries to freely buy from and sell to each other...
kw
From The National Interest No. 67
The New Cuba Divide
by Daniel P. Erikson
. . . Although many religious organizations have opposed the Cuba embargo for years, the American farming lobby has now emerged as the most influential new voice in current policymaking. In Congress, it is led by several senior western Republicans who are being pressed by their constituencies to seek new markets. In Cold War days, these legislators would have supported anti-Castro initiatives as an easy way to accrue political capital within the party at little personal cost. The end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of a new farming crisis in the 1990s has changed all that, allowing a nascent coalition of liberal Democrats and western conservatives to pump new life into congressional momentum to repeal the Cuban embargo. . . .
The farm lobby scored an important victory when the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act was signed into law in October 2000, just months after the PNTR vote. This act, sponsored by Nethercutt, finally does allow food and medicine trade (sic) with Cuba, and it made possible the all-cash purchases in the aftermath of Hurricane Michelle. It is clearly the most significant legislative initiative passed on Cuba since the 1996 Helms-Burton bill. Nor is congressional pressure against the embargo easing. The October 2000 act still prohibits public financing of food sales to Cuba, and that restriction has now become the focus of subsequent efforts. The American Farming Bureau Federation is seeking exemption of U.S. products from all existing embargoes and sanctions, which are estimated to cost U.S. farmers 14 percent of the export market for rice, 10 percent for wheat, 5 percent for vegetable oil and barley, and 4 percent of foreign corn sales. . . .
Updated 03/06/2002 10:10:15
Copyright © 1998-1999 National Affairs, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Courtesy of:
The Law Office of Jose Pertierra
1010 Vermont Avenue, NW #620
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Karen Lee Wald
2175 Aborn Road, apt. 164
San Jose, CA 95121
telephone 408-532-6147
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Karen Lee Wald
2175 Aborn Road, apt. 164
San Jose, CA 95121
telephone 408-532-6147
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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