HAVANA -- The United States remained Cuba's main supplier of food and farm products in 2007, selling the communist-run island more than $600 million in agricultural exports despite its trade embargo, a top official said Monday.
Cuba imported roughly the same amount of agricultural products as it did in 2006, but rising production and transportation costs forced it to spend $30 million more than the $570 million it paid two years ago for the same goods, said Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import company Alimport.
Alvarez's comments came during a joint news conference with California Secretary of Food and Agriculture A.G. Kawamura, who is in Cuba on a trade mission and is hoping America's largest food-producing state can one day sell as much as $180 million in agricultural products to the island. It was the state's first agricultural mission to Cuba.
Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prevents U.S. tourists from visiting Cuba and prohibits nearly all trade. But a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000 allows the Cuban government to buy U.S. food and agricultural products with direct cash payments.
Cuba at first balked at the measure, but reversed course after a hurricane ravaged parts of the island in November 2001. The government has since spent more than $2.7 billion on U.S. farm products and the related shipping and banking expenses that it factors into import totals, Alvarez said.
The U.S. has been the island's top food source since 2003.
Als Partei wäre mir das sowas von peinlich. Vor allem da bis heute kein einziger Republikanischer Kanditat sich gegen das Embargo aussprach. Dise Taktik sollte man sofort überdenken falls ein Mitt Romney gewählt werden würde und den Städtern mal das Arbeiten lernen. In Santiago wählen sie glatt den Politiker der ihnen das meiste Essen verspricht anstatt eine Arbeit.
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US remains Cuba's top food supplier
