US -- Cuba Cooperation 2008 -- a news chronology

(From stories compiled by FOCAL, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas)

January 16: Three Cuban cyclists traveled to the US city of Los Angeles to participate in the third stage of the World Cup of the sport that takes place there on January 18-20. The island's team is comprised of Yumari Gonzalez and Yoanka Gonzalez (2007 and 2004 world champions in the scratch event, respectively) as well as young talent Yudelmis Dominguez. They will join also Cuban Lisandra Guerra (world silver medalist in the 500-meter time trial event), who is already in Los Angeles after arriving from Aigle, Switzerland, where she trains at the World Training Center of the International Cycling Union. (ACN, 17/1/08)

January 16: Two Yolo County companies are part of a California agricultural trade mission to Cuba. Eleven companies, led by A.G. Kawamura, the state's food and agriculture secretary, will visit Cuba on January 21-24 to market California agricultural products to the government. Representatives from Mariani Nut Co. and Sierra Orchards will go on the trip. The companies on the delegation were selected based on their commitment to international trade and how closely their products meet the needs of the Cuban market. The goal of the mission is to start the groundwork for future trips where products will be sold. California exported $735,000 worth of agricultural products to Cuba in 2006. (Sacramento Business Journal, 16/1/08)

January 19: Once taboo in Miami, the exhibiting of artwork from Cubans on the island is no longer unusual. Exempted from the US embargo against the Cuban government, art made by Cuban artists on the island is often featured in group and solo shows and sold at galleries in Coral Gables, Wynwood and the Design District. The artist Kcho, considered one of Cuba's top talents, has never had a solo show in Miami, but his sculptures sold in December at the fair Art Miami almost as soon as they were displayed by a Venezuelan gallery. Currently, the show “AfroCuba Works on Paper, 1968-2003” at the Lowe Art Museum features the work of artists on the island. Most of the work is on loan from art institutions in Cuba or the artists themselves. (The Miami Herald, 19/1/08)

January 20: There’s a bright ray of hope for students in the United States who want to become doctors. Beginning in 2001 students from the US began studying in Havana for free at the Latin American School of Medicine (LASM). Originally 500 students were offered scholarships annually. This has been increased to 1,000. The only condition is that the students make a commitment to serve poor communities in the US after receiving their medical licenses. Most of the U.S. students who have either graduated from the LASM or are now in the medical program are people of color and/or women. (Workers World, 20/1/08)

January 21: California, the top US food producing state, has sent its first official agricultural trade mission to communist Cuba, looking to tap a potential $180 million food market. While other US states have pushed ahead in selling Cuba an average $350 million per year in agricultural products, mainly grains, California is a late arrival. Californian companies sold products worth just $735,000 to Cuba in 2006. "Some of us might be a little late in getting here, but we are here," California Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura told reporters in Havana. Kawamura is leading a delegation of companies seeking Cuban contracts for dairy products, wine, grapes, figs, nuts and other specialty fruits. So far, Cuba has bought powdered milk and rice from California, and some wine and apples. (Reuters, 22/1/08)

January 21: The United States remained Cuba's main supplier of food and farm products in 2007, selling the communist-run island more than $600 million in agricultural exports despite its trade embargo, a top official said. Cuba imported roughly the same amount of agricultural products as it did in 2006, but rising production and transportation costs forced it to spend $30 million more than the $570 million it paid two years ago for the same goods, said Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import company Alimport. Alvarez's comments came during a joint news conference with California Secretary of Food and Agriculture A.G. Kawamura, who is in Cuba on a trade mission and is hoping America's largest food-producing state can one day sell as much as $180 million in agricultural products to the island. It was the state's first agricultural mission to Cuba. (The New York Times, 21/1/08)

January 25: Montana pea and lentil growers have negotiated a $7.8 million sale to Cuba. The deal will move nearly 15,000 tons of crops from one of the fastest-growing segments of Montana farming. To complete a deal, Cuba must deposit its payment in the bank of a third country, where US businesses can then take the cash while still honoring the trade ban. Business travel to Cuba, less than 100 miles off the Florida coast, is tightly regulated. Yet Montana pea growers have coveted the Cuban market. "It's so close to us, it makes producers salivate," said Kim Murray, of the Montana Pulse Advisory Committee. (Billings Gazette, 25/1/08)

January 29: North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson is making another trip to Cuba to push North Dakota farm products. Johnson said he has traveled to Cuba seven times in the past seven years to pitch the state’s commodities. He said the state has sold about $30 million worth of peas and lentils to Cuba since 2001. But he said a deal he helped broker last year that would have sent 100 tons of seed potatoes to Cuba has languished. Rules have not been crafted to deal with potato food-safety issues, known as “sanitary and phytosanitary measures,” that ensure the commodity is disease- and insect-free, Johnson said. “It’s disappointing,” Johnson said. US regulators “are still dithering around with the protocol – it’s hard to say where the block is.” (AP, 29/1/08)

February 12: Though the average American can't travel to Cuba, 10 Brown students will have the opportunity to spend next semester in Havana studying with 10 Cuban students at the Casa de Las Americas, taught entirely by Cuban professors. "This is the perfect opportunity to look at the past, present and future of Cuba while sitting next to Cuban nationals," said Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the College. Brown has a license from the Department of the Treasury authorizing semester programs in Cuba for its students, Brostuen said, meaning students can travel only by going through Brown's program. (The Brown Daily Herald, 12/2/08)

February 12: Ten members from Fayetteville First United Methodist Church and one member from Peachtree City United Methodist Church experienced first-hand what La Iglesia Metodista en Cuba (The Methodist Church in Cuba) is doing to spread the Gospel in that country. The Rev. Mark Westmoreland, pastor of Fayetteville First UMC, said of the trip, “We saw a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.” The group worshiped with and worked with Iglesia Metodista Nuevitas in Nuevitas, a port city of 40,000 on the northern coast of Cuba 350 miles east of Havana. (The Citizen.Com, 12/2/08)

February 15: After two years of shrinkage, US sales to Cuba of agricultural goods during 2007 bounced back to $437.7 million, the highest annual total since such sales were authorized in 2000. The 2007 total represented a strong increase over the $340.4 million recorded in 2006 and the $350.2 million recorded in 2005, according to figures compiled by the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a New York group that monitors bilateral trade. The $437.7 million made Cuba the United States' 37th largest trading partner for the year, according to the council, which obtains its data from the US government. Since Washington first authorized such sales to Cuba as a humanitarian exemption to the US trade embargo, Havana has bought nearly $2 billion in those goods from US companies. (The Miami Herald, 15/2/08)

March 19: Cuban and US labor lawyers and union representatives are gathering in Havana for the ninth occasion. The first session was headed by the General Secretary of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC), Salvador Valdes Mesa, and the president of the US National Lawyers Guild, Dean Hubbard. The 9th Cuba-US Bilateral Encounter of Labor Lawyers will run until March 22 under the theme “In Defense of Labor Rights and Social Security and against Neo-liberal Policies.” Highlighted on the agenda are the effects of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba and the ways in which Cuban workers and unionists face the stiffening by the Bush administration of the US unilateral anti-Cuba measures. (AIN, 20/3/08)

March 20: USA Rice Federation joined Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture, ALIMPORT and Foreign Ministry officials in recent visits to seed rice production areas and a tour of a renovated rice mill in one of Cuba’s western provinces about 90 minutes from Havana. The group discussed rice production issues in Cuba as well as trade opportunities for US rice. “We recognize the important work the USA Rice Federation is doing in developing the US rice market in Cuba, and we are open to imports of rice from the US as it has great acceptance with our people,” said Hector Henriquez, vice president for the Ministry of Agriculture Rice Industries Group. Cuba’s mills are in great need of repair and most experts and officials agree that milled rice would dominate future rice imports. (Delta Farm Press, 20/3/08)

March 26: Minnesota companies already export agricultural goods, including livestock, to Cuba but a state delegation is headed there to plant seeds for increased trade. Officials leaving on March 29, on a five-day trip to Havana, say Minnesota is positioning itself to meet the island country’s growing food and agriculture needs. Minnesota exported more than $18 million of agricultural products to Cuba in 2007. That included corn, soybeans, wheat, beans, dairy cattle and a distilled grain product from corn-based ethanol that is used as livestock feed. “That’s not insignificant,” said Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson, who is leading the delegation. “But the bigger issue is what’s going to happen down the road when US-Cuban relations finally get to the point of being normal.” The trip comes less than a year after Hugoson and others visited Cuba on a similar trade mission. (The Republican Eagle, 26/3/08)

April 7: Despite the embargo that cut most ties between the US and Cuba more than 40 years ago, all but 13 states — including South Carolina — take advantage of an obscure federal law that allows them to regularly sell agricultural products to Cuba. Since 2001, US farmers have sold more than $1.5 billion in food and timber to the island. In 2004, South Carolina took the first step toward establishing business relations with the island. A trade delegation visited Havana and signed a deal to export $10 million worth of agricultural goods, mostly chickens, to Cuba. Four years later, the deal is dormant. For now, South Carolina farmers are missing the boat. "The purpose of the whole trip was to sell South Carolina goods," said state Representative Chip Limehouse (Republican-Charleston), who was a member of that delegation. "It is a fairly complex transaction, and the Bush administration basically tightened things up. It's complicated and it's political." South Carolina's loss is every other state's gain. Pedro Alvarez, chairman and chief executive officer of Alimport, the Cuban government-owned import agency, said that since US law was changed to allow sales to Cuba, there have been more than 1,000 shipments of roughly 9.5 million tons of goods from the United States. Even the Communist state paper, Granma, is printed on paper from Alabama."Your competitors are here, definitely," Alvarez told S.C. Press Association delegates visiting Cuba recently. (Charleston Post Courier, 7/4/08)

April 9: Senator Christopher Dodd, one of the most influential Democratic lawmakers on Latin American issues, proposed a new strategic partnership with the region that he said should be kicked off with a new policy on Cuba. Dodd, who has endorsed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said that so far US policy toward Latin America has focused too narrowly on trade, drugs and elections. He wants a new approach and says re-thinking the Cuba policy is a good place to start. ''The Strategic Partnership for the Americas which I have just outlined, can begin in one place- Cuba,'' said the Connecticut lawmaker and a well-known critic of the US embargo. He said policy toward Cuba has been ``agonizingly static for almost 50 years.'' ''I believe we must dramatically alter our posture towards Cuba, by ending the trade embargo, lifting travel restrictions and caps on remittances to the struggling Cuban people, and by engaging in bilateral and multilateral talks on issues of mutual interest,'' he said. (The Miami Herald, 9/4/08)

April 18: New York Agriculture Commissioner Paul Hooker is leading a delegation of New York farmers to Cuba in the state's first trade mission to the country. Hooker says he plans to explore market opportunities during his visit from April 21-23. The goal of the trip is to encourage the export of New York fruits and vegetables to Cuba. The delegation includes: Kevin King of Empire State Forest Products in Rensselaer; John Cushing of New York Apple Sales in Castleton; and Lloyd Zimmerman of Black Horse Farm Inc. of Coxsackie. "Cuba relies on US imports and has expressed a keen interest in New York food and agricultural products," Hooker said. (The Business Review, 18/4/08)

April 23: A New York farm mission is winding up a Cuba trip without firm sales of products to the island. Trade consultant Kirby Jones, who organized New York Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker's trip, says he hopes some contracts will be worked out after the group returns to the US. Hooker says Cuban officials are interested in New York apples, wines, and canned fruit. The Americans threw their Cuban hosts a dinner with New York-state produced products, including steaks and cheesecake. At a farmers market, delegation members sampled bananas and asked about tropical produce. The US embargo prohibits most trade with Cuba, but many American products can be sold directly to the island. (AP, 23/4/08)

April 25: In an interview with CNN en Espanol, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat- California), said that "for years” she has opposed the embargo on Cuba. "I don't think it's been successful, and I think we have to remove the travel bans and have more exchanges -- people to people exchanges with Cuba," she said. (CNN, 27/4/08)

May 12: A recent New York State sponsored-agricultural trade mission to Cuba was a success, according to those who participated in it. Among the farmers from the Hudson Valley who participated was Lloyd Zimmerman of Black Horse Farm in Coxsackie. Since the US is only allowed to sell agricultural products to Cuba, Zimmerman said the government officials were very much interested in buying Hudson Valley apples, beans, corn, grains and dairy products. And, because of the perishable nature of the products, they would need to be delivered a.s.a.p. Zimmerman said. (MidHudson Radio, 12/5/08)

May 14: The state of Texas will send a trade delegation to Cuba in late May, the first official visit in more than 45 years and one that organizers hope will pave the way for broader trade in the years to come. Led by Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, the 24-member delegation will include representatives from all sectors of Texas agriculture, including grain, cotton, beans, rice and cattle. The trip is scheduled for May 27-31, organizers said. Trade prospects include airlines, oil, technology and tourism, sectors now banned under the nearly 50-year US trade embargo of Cuba. "Texas and Cuba used to have very strong commercial ties before the embargo," said Cynthia Thomas, president of Dallas-based Tri Dimensions Strategies, a consulting firm. "This trip is intended to lay the foundation for renewing strong ties between our two economies”. (The Dallas Morning News, 14/5/08)