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US to Ease Cuban Embargo
Potentially a sea change in antagonistic U.S.-Cuba relations, the proposal could be put to a vote this week in both chambers of Congress and sent to the White House. Backers said they expected President Bill Clinton to sign it.
Economic sanctions were imposed on Cuba in the early 1960s in an effort to isolate communist President Fidel Castro at the height of the Cold War. Momentum shifted this year in favour of trade, forcing Republican leaders and anti-Castro members of Congress to the bargaining table.
Cuban government officials and commentators heaped scorn on the move to free up food and medicine sales to the island, dismissing it as a "big joke," which would be impossible to implement.
In a live television "round table" on Tuesday, the Cubans concentrated their attack on the conditions surrounding the food and medicine sales initiative, which ruled out public or private financing for the sales or reciprocal Cuban sales to the United States.
Because the language of the proposal would be part of a one-year spending bill, it would have to be renewed next year.
"This is a fundamental shift in American foreign policy and a new day for American farmers," said Washington state Republican Representative George Nethercutt, the leading advocate in the House of Representatives for exempting food and medicine from unilateral U.S. sanctions.
"My hope is we don't have to go through this (turmoil) next year, that we have established a position."
Cuba would be the major beneficiary, but the legislation would put into law similar steps already taken by the Clinton administration for Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan.
Experts agreed the shift in Cuba policy would be largely symbolic and result in only a small amount of sales at first. Cuba lacks the cash for large-scale purchases, may prefer to stick with long-standing suppliers and faces other U.S. obstacles, like a ban on ships that visit Cuba from entering U.S. ports for 180 days.
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