Cuba embargo? What Cuba embargo?

Voices: Cuba embargo? What Cuba embargo?
Alan Gomez, USA TODAY 2:50 p.m. EST February 13, 2014
Despite the trade ban, there's plenty of commerce between the U.S. and
the island.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
U.S. companies exported $350 million in goods to Cuba last year
Many Cuban-Americans send remittances to relatives back home
Americans can visit the island for religious, cultural or educational
reasons

MIAMI — Danilo Gomez (no relation) chuckles when asked whether the U.S.
embargo on Cuba should end.

"What embargo?" he says, sitting on top of his scooter after picking up
some groceries near downtown Miami.

Gomez's observation underscores a fact little known outside
Cuban-American communities in the United States. While the U.S. touts
the embargo as a way to starve the Castro government of funding it needs
to survive, and the international community routinely criticizes America
for it, U.S. companies exported more than $350 million in goods to the
island last year. Four years ago, it was more than $700 million.

In past years, the U.S. has been the main food supplier to Cuba. U.S.
companies send medicine, medical devices and agricultural products.
Cuban Americans send untold amounts of consumer goods to relatives back
home, from TVs and computers to toilet paper and T-shirts. Nearly
100,000 American citizens visited the island in 2012 through a variety
of specialized visa programs, according to Cuban government figures.

The biggest contribution comes through cash remittances that Cuban
Americans send to relatives — more than $2.6 billion worth in 2012,
according to a study by the Miami-based Havana Consulting Group.

"That's not an embargo," says Gomez, 71, who left Cuba in 1975. "Money,
clothes, food, medicine — we send all that."

The 54-year-old economic embargo on Cuba is designed to prevent U.S.
businesses and their foreign subsidiaries from trading with Cuba. But
since 2000, American businesses have been allowed to sell humanitarian
goods to the island. Americans can't travel to Cuba as tourists, but
President Obama expanded access to visas for people visiting the island
for religious, cultural or educational reasons.

The embargo returned to the national debate last week when former
Florida Republican governor Charlie Crist — now running for the same
office as a Democrat — called for an end to the embargo. Crist's
comments have prompted some politicians to defend the embargo.

"The sanctions codified in U.S. law affirm that the American people
stand in solidarity with the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom
by refusing to sustain their oppressors," read a statement from Rep.
Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the son of Cuban immigrants.

But how much solidarity can there be when U.S. businesses and citizens
can routinely travel to the island and strike deals with the government
there?

Government officials from Florida, Georgia, California, Nebraska and a
slew of other states have led trade delegations to Cuba to help sign
export deals for their states' businesses.

American citizens used to sneak into Cuba by flying through Mexico,
Canada or Caribbean countries, with Cuban customs officials knowingly
leaving their passports unstamped so the bold travelers wouldn't get
into trouble when they returned to the U.S. Now they can more easily get
a people-to-people visa and fly directly from Miami, Los Angeles,
Atlanta, New York and other U.S. airports.

Whether the embargo should be maintained or eliminated is a debate for
members of Congress. But people like Danilo Gomez know well just how
porous that economic barrier already is.

Source: Voices: Cuba embargo? What Cuba embargo? -
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