WASHINGTON (AP)--Farm-state senators, including several senior Republicans, said Feb. 9 the Bush administration was putting up bureaucratic roadblocks to agriculture exports to Cuba, and they were going to take legislative steps to protect that growing market.

"Don't put up the artificial barriers, don't create the chilling effect. Clean up your act and abide by the law," was the message of Sen. Larry Craig, co-sponsor of legislation aimed at clarifying the rules of a 2000 statute making food and agriculture exports an exception to the trade embargo with Cuba.

Craig was joined in promoting the measure by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and Sen. Max Baucus, Democrat on the Finance Committee, all from farm states.

The administration has been successful in blocking perennial attempts by Congress to ease restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba, but Craig said they were only trying to clarify existing law and there was no signal from the White House of hostility to their action.

The senators noted that since the 2000 act, which allows cash sales to Cuba, the Castro regime has gone from the 226th largest market for U.S. agriculture exports to rank 21st, with total purchases of $1 billion.

But they said the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has recently discouraged trade by such bureaucratic moves as withholding payments due to U.S. exporters from Cuban purchasers and delaying the issuance of export and travel licenses.

"They are doing everything they can at this point to shut down the ability to sell agriculture commodities to Cuba. It is just plain wrong-headed," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, said.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Millerwise said it was a "large misconception" that the Office of Foreign Assets Control was blocking payments. She said it was financial institutions, unclear on the law, that had held up payments while they sought guidance from the office, and that the Treasury Department hoped to issue such guidance in the near future.

She had no comment on the legislation offered Feb. 9, but said Treasury "will continue to accurately and effectively enforce our sanctions program" with Cuba.

The bill would make clear that the requirement for "cash payment in advance" means the receipt of payment before the release of physical control of goods to the purchaser. It would authorize the issuing of general licenses for American agriculture producers to travel to Cuba to sell and market their goods and authorize direct payments to U.S. banks. Currently the American seller and Cuban buyer must use European banks for transactions.

Trying to disrupt agriculture trade with Cuba is a "bad mistake," Roberts said. "We're going to help them out by producing some certainty."

The bill has 10 Republican and 10 Democratic sponsors. In opposition was Cuban-born Sen. Mel Martinez, who said it was "not the right time to ease embargo restrictions whatsoever."

Date: 2/24/05

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