During a hearing conducted by the House Trade Subcommittee Thursday, Representative Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., blasted U.S. rules that restrict agricultural sales to Cuba. He said the policies unfairly penalize American family farmers and actually help the Castro regime by allowing the dictator to blame American policy for economic troubles on the island.
"It's about time we got rid of these failed policies that restrict agricultural sales to Cuba," Pomeroy said. "The federal government has accomplished nothing other than keeping our family farmers from accessing a promising market for their products. That's got to change."
Federal law makes travel to the country very difficult, hurting farmers' ability to lead trade missions. A rule implemented by President George W. Bush in 2005 forced American producers to receive cash for their products before they ship them to Cuba, enriching foreign banks and costing U.S. farmers hundreds of millions dollars in lost sales each year. The National Farmers Union says it supports the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act. In submitted testimony, NFU President Roger Johnson told members of the House Ways and Means Committee on Trade with Cuba, "I have personally led eight trade-related missions to Cuba. I can speak from firsthand experience on the importance of ending the Cuban embargo and establishing trade relations with Cuba in an effort to better the U.S. agriculture market." Johnson says current U.S. policy hampers our ability to supply the Cuban market and that this legislation contains a provision to eliminate the expensive and discriminatory requirement that payments to U.S. agricultural sellers must pass through banks in other countries. This bill would allow direct financial transactions for agricultural sales to Cuba; require agricultural exports to Cuba to meet the same payment requirements as exports to other countries; and allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba.
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