Americas

September 20, 2000

ITC holds hearings on Cuba blockade

By Berta Gomez

WASHINGTON — The International Trade Commission (ITC) opened its first-ever public hearing on the economic impact of U.S. blockade against Cuba with more than 30 witnesses, including Cuba's top representative in Washington, slated to testify September 19 and 20.

The ITC is conducting the investigation at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means. The ITC makes no recommendations on policy or other matters in its fact-finding reports, officials said.

The commission is scheduled to submit its report to Congress by February 15, 2001.

Two members of Congress who favor lifting the sanctions, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), described the 40-year blockade as a Cold War relic that currently does more harm than good.

“It sounds absurd, but [Cuban leader Fidel] Castro blames the U.S. embargo for his failed economic policies,” said Baucus, who led a Senate delegation to Havana last July. “Without the embargo, he would have no one to blame but himself.”

Rangel said that open borders, the promotion of trade and the flow of information “is the way to shatter the myths of communism” in Cuba.

Cuban-American legislators Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans, reaffirmed their strong support for keeping the sanctions in place, and urged the ITC to address the principles underlying the blockade in addition to its impact on the United States’ economy.

“Any study on Cuba sanctions would not be complete if it did not address the purpose of the sanctions to determine if ... the safety of the American people is a higher priority than the possible growth of a particular sector of our economy,” Ros-Lehtinen testified. The government of Fidel Castro, she charged, engages in “drug trafficking, support for terrorists and insurgents, espionage against the United States, harboring of fugitives from U.S. justice, human rights abuses and murder of American citizens.”

She and Diaz-Balart also took strong exception to the inclusion of a Cuban official on the ITC witness list, with Diaz-Balart describing the Cuban government as a “Stalinist dictatorship” which “should not be given an opportunity to comment before the U.S. International Trade Commission as though it were a representative, elected government.”

For his part, Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, principal officer at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, urged an end to the U.S. blockade against his country “without any conditions.” He also told the commission that Cuba has established mutually beneficial trade and investment relationships with countries all over the world, “including some of the United States' closest allies.”

Policy analysts and private-sector witnesses were generally divided on the degree to which trade with Cuba could benefit the United States in terms of economic gain or achieving long-term policy goals.

Wayne Smith, a former U.S. diplomat who served as chief of the United States’ Interests Section in Havana from 1979 to 1982, said the sanctions have “failed utterly” to promote democracy or to improve the lives of Cubans on the island. He called for an end to the blockade — primarily because it provides Castro a “pretext” for his economic failures and “generates sympathy” for Cuba around the world.

Former ITC Chairwoman Paula Stern testified that partial U.S. trade liberalization “may be an opportunity for American farmers and business,” as well as “a threat to the Cuban government’s control over the Cuban revolution.” She estimated that within five years of liberalization, U.S. food and medical exports to Cuba could exceed $400 million — as long as Cuba had access to U.S. export credits and financing from U.S. institutions.

At the other end of the spectrum, William Hawkins, a visiting fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, said the blockade should not be lifted until the United States is certain that the Castro government has changed course and joined the community of democracies.

He described the notion that open trade will affect Cuban government policies as “pure speculation.”

Similarly, University of Miami Professor Jaime Suchlicki warned that lifting the embargo could help strengthen current socialist structures by permitting more money to flow into state-owned enterprises in Cuba.

“The U.S. embargo should be held as a carrot to be lifted when Cuba changes its current system and develops a democratic society,” he said. It is “not an anachronism but a legitimate instrument for achieving the goal of a free Cuba.”

ITC officials said that their report will provide an overview of U.S. sanctions, a description of the Cuban economy, and an analysis of the impact of sanctions on both the U.S. and Cuban economies.