A similar measure is being considered in the U.S. Senate. The proposal, at first opposed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms, moved ahead there after stipulations were added to prevent any sales to Cuba from being eligible for subsidies from the U.S. government. Last year, the Senate approved a comparable measure by a vote of 70–28.

The legislation is one of a number of signs that substantial wings of the U.S. ruling class have decided to move away from aspects of its trade embargo, a cornerstone of Washington's four-decade-long effort to try to weaken and overturn the Cuban revolution. Many Democratic and Republican party politicians, columnists and editorial writers in the big-business press, and corporate officials openly declare the embargo a failed policy and advocate a different course to achieve the same aim.

The debate over the Cuba embargo has intensified in the wake of passage of legislation giving China permanent normal trading relations with the United States. "What's good for China is good for Cuba," was the title of a feature column by Nethercutt in the New York Times. With the China trade bill behind it, he argues, Congress "must decide whether it has the courage of its convictions on another issue: lifting sanctions against Cuba."

Senate majority leader Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi, has been a voice of caution. "It's very easy to see the distinction" between China and Cuba, he told reporters May 22. "And if you can't see it, I don't know. Maybe you are just blind to it." Lott added that Cuban president Fidel Castro has "shown no repentance."

While attributing to one person the determination of millions of Cuban working people not to repent to U.S. imperialism for making a socialist revolution and defending it arms in hand for more than 40 years, Lott's statements reflect a countervailing view that, because of the strengths of the Cuban revolution, ending the embargo is not the way to advance Washington's interests.

Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly, said in response to the legislation that the "idea, the motivation, the direction is a very positive one and we would welcome it."

Cuban foreign ministry spokesperson Alejandro González said the legislation is "a step in the right direction. We are watching all of these initiatives. We understand that although they are initiatives aimed in the right direction...we must also not have false expectations," especially for a total lifting of the embargo.

Through its embargo, of which the prohibition on Cuba's acquisition of food and medicine of U.S. origin is one aspect, Washington has sought to economically, financially, and commercially strangle Cuba.

The U.S. government's first trade restrictions against Cuba, including a cut in the amount of sugar purchased by U.S. companies, came in 1959 as Cuba's revolutionary leadership carried out a sweeping land reform and other far-reaching social measures that alarmed the wealthy U.S. rulers.

The trade embargo was enacted in 1960 by U.S. president John Kennedy in response to further mobilizations of Cuban workers and farmers, the nationalization of key industries, and the determination of the Cuban people to stand up to U.S. military threats.

Currency restrictions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department prohibit U.S. residents from traveling to Cuba to see the country for themselves, violating their right of freedom to travel.

In a tightening of the embargo, the misnamed Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, known as the Torricelli law, made it illegal for foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to trade with Cuba. It closed U.S. ports to ships that have made a port of call to Cuba within the previous six months, and authorized the president to apply sanctions against any country that provides aid to Cuba.

The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996, also know as the Helms-Burton bill, was signed into law by President William Clinton. It codified all previous executive orders tightening the embargo. The law allowed Cuban-American and other U.S. businessmen whose property on the island was confiscated to sue companies abroad that invest in those properties.

Nethercutt's arguments about why the embargo should be eased are similar to those made by others in bourgeois circles who advocate a change. "The current agriculture spending bill includes an amendment I wrote that would lift all food and medicine sanctions on Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan," he wrote in the Times column. "The United States stands alone in prohibiting sales of the most basic humanitarian goods to these countries, leading to $1 billion in lost economic activity in rural America. Our farmers suffer from lost sales, but these sanctioned countries freely purchase an estimated $7 billion of agricultural commodities from our allies around the world," he noted, referring to sharpened trade competition between U.S. capitalists and their imperialist rivals in Europe and Japan.

The congressman argued that "American farmers are the only ones punished" by such sanctions, adding that "denying innocent civilians access to food and medicine" is an "abhorrent foreign policy tool."

As to how lifting aspects of the embargo would advance Washington's long-term goal of crushing the Cuban revolution, Nethercutt says, "Castro has used this scapegoat argument against the United States for years. If we take this argument away from him, we export not only food and medicine but also democracy."

A Washington Post article quotes an unnamed White House official stating that while the administration is not "averse to the idea" of curtailing some sanctions, it opposes this legislation because it "interferes with the president's ability to make foreign policy." According to the article, the official said, "Sanctions decisions--either to impose, lift or modify--should reflect a cooperative relationship between the Congress and the president. Sanctions legislation should give the president the flexibility he needs to conduct foreign policy and protect national security."

A number of prominent delegations of U.S. business officials and members of Congress have made highly publicized visits to Cuba over the past few years.

Rep. Charles Stenholm, a Democrat from Texas, led a delegation of farmers to Cuba in April. "Over 90 percent of U.S. farmers and ranchers say that it is time to lift all unilaterally imposed sanctions on food and medicine," he said. Donald Patman, president of the Texas Farm Bureau, said, "Texas farmers and ranchers could easily and profitably supply many of the products both used and needed here in Cuba.

Last November Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spoke out against the embargo at the Americas Business Forum held in Toronto leading up to a meeting of trade ministers from the Western Hemisphere. "We are pushing very, very hard to pass the food and medicine exemption," he told the gathering. Donohue traveled to Cuba last summer and met with the Cuban president. According to the Journal of Commerce, Donohue "called on private-sector groups to press for an end to the nearly four-decade trade embargo on Cuba." The article added, "Whether it is ports like Miami, Tampa and New Orleans, or express companies, forwarders and logistics providers, business plans are being drawn up for Cuba. Many believe the embargo will be lifted sooner rather than later."

One of the most prominent delegations so far was led by Illinois governor George Ryan. It included the chairman and chief executive of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. and officials from the heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Corp. The New York Times backed Ryan's trip against critics, writing in an editorial that the "time is ripe for changing American policy toward Cuba from isolation to democratic engagement. American businesses, like American farmers, see post-Castro Cuba as a potentially lucrative market and do not want to concede it to foreign competitors."

An indication of the breakdown of the U.S. government's restrictions on travel to Cuba, except when licensed by the Treasury Department, is that some 200,000 visitors--both legal and illegal--traveled from the United States to Cuba last year, the second-largest number from any one country.

Allowing sales of food and medicine would not result in much increase in exports to Cuba, nearly everyone backing the bill admits. The measure specifies that companies wanting to sell to Cuba would have to obtain yearly licenses to export products and wait six months after the law is enacted to conduct business. Goods are limited to food, medicine, and medical products. There has already been some movement in this direction, with 63 licenses for export of medicine and medical products granted by the Commerce Department last year.

With Cuba facing foreign currency shortages and lacking credits to purchase agricultural products from U.S. businesses, there is little chance much food will be sold to Cuba under the proposed law.

Cuba currently imports wheat from France in a barter arrangement. Last year some 714,000 tons of cereals, about 70 percent of Cuba's flour needs, were imported from France. In return, Cuba sends sugar valued at $180 million. The barter arrangement has grown steadily each year since it was started in the early 1990s, according to Cuba Business. Cuba's top 10 trading partners, in descending order, are Spain, the Russian Federation, Canada, Venezuela, China, France, Mexico, Italy, Germany, and Argentina, according to the Cuban Chamber of Commerce.

The German government recently said it would finance a development program to combat desertification in eastern Cuba. German Cooperation and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul announced the project in Havana in May. Two months earlier Cuban and German governments renegotiated debts dating back to Cuba's relations with the former East German government.

In April the Cuban government withdrew its request to join a trade and aid accord between the European Union and 71 African, Caribbean, and Pacific states, citing "unacceptable" demands, including "criticism of its human rights record and calls for the island to abandon one-party communism," according to the Financial Times.

A New York Newsday feature editorial, entitled "Annoy this man: end the embargo," bluntly put forward the aims of overturning the revolution by other means. "The 40-year-old embargo" is a "failed policy" that "hasn't come close to meeting its stated objectives: removing Castro or getting him to modify his regime."  
 
 
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