Group pushes Cuba trade:Association seeks the normalizing of relations wit

[Judi Lynn]

Group pushes Cuba trade
Association seeks the normalizing of relations with the island nation

BY GREG EDWARDS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Apr 28, 2005


More than 30 organizations from 19 states, including some of the country's largest agribusiness companies, have joined together to work for improved business relations with Cuba. The U.S.-Cuba Trade Association's goals are to protect and expand trade and promote normal business relations with the island country, which has faced a U.S. trade embargo for 45 years.
(snip)

The group is supporting legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives that would make trade with Cuba easier. Among other things the legislation would overturn a ruling this year by a Treasury Department agency that U.S. exports to Cuba must be paid for up front before leaving U.S. ports.
(snip)

Members of the new trade group include Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Caterpillar, the Port of Galveston, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the National Foreign Trade Council.

The group's advisory board is led by William D. Rogers, a former assistant secretary of state, and includes David Rockefeller, the retired chairman of The Chase Manhattan Corp. and a promoter of international cooperation; former trade representative Carla Hills and two former secretaries of defense, Frank Carlucci and James Schlesinger. Carlucci said he believes that normalizing business relations with Cuba is in the U.S. national interest and would bring better results than the trade embargo.
(snip/...)

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031782404537&path=!business&s=1045855934855

[fasttense]

1. I don't understand why we don't have

more normalized dealings with Cuba. I mean we don't have a problem with business dealings with communist China, why not Communist Cuba? This will open up another source of off shore labor that companies can exploit and it is a lot closer to home than China. The big corporations can pay ten cents an hour and wont have to go far to sell the crap to jobless Americans. Sound like a win win for everyone (except the middle class but we don't care about the middle class anyway.)

[pinerow]

2. Many of these companies want to get in on the ground floor...

there is a strong belief that Cuba may emulate the Chinese economic model, while maintaining the domestic Socialist program...it would be a pragmatic move on the part of the Cuban government...imo...

[Mika]

3. It wouldn't work (the Chinese model in Cuba)

All Cuban workers are union represented. Fair and safe working conditions are enforced nationwide. That is not the case in China, where the Chinese Red Army is one of the largest contractors and runs the sweatshops there under some awful conditions. Cubans simply would not accept those conditions.






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