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House leaders agree to lift food and medicine embargo against Cuba

 

June 27, 2000
Web posted at: 5:07 a.m. EDT (0907 GMT)


In this story:

Deal calls for cash payments from Cuba

Proposal is smaller in scope than original

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congressional negotiators, under pressure from farm-state lawmakers anxious to expand exports, reached agreement early Tuesday morning to lift the nearly 40-year-old food and medicine embargo against communist Cuba.

The historic pact, which was reached after months of infighting among House Republicans, should be passed later this week as part of a separate House/Senate conference report on military construction spending, members said after leaving a nearly six-hour negotiating session.

Both the Senate and President Clinton have signaled they will accept the deal.

  MESSAGE BOARD
 

In addition to Cuba, the bill lifts sanctions against North Korea, Sudan, Libya, and Iran.

In the end, negotiators agreed to lift the sanctions but with restrictions that may severely limit poverty-stricken Cuba's ability actually to buy the suddenly available U.S. products.

Deal calls for cash payments from Cuba

The structure of the deal requires that Cuba will have to pay U.S. farmers and distributors in cash. The U.S. government and private U.S. financial institutions will not be allowed to extend credit or loan guarantees to Cuba. And Cuba will not be able to barter products with the U.S. nor export products here.

Negotiators did agree to allow Cuba to arrange financing through third-country governments and the private financial institutions of third countries.

Those same restrictions on financing through the U.S. apply to Iran but not the other so-called "rogue nations" involved in this bill.

Anti-Castro negotiators concerned the Clinton administration was preparing to loosen tourism controls won an agreement to block U.S. tourism to Cuba as long as President Fidel Castro is in power. That language will be codified.

The deal saved face for all the major players at the table.

Proposal is smaller in scope than original

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Washington, who has spent three years aggressively pushing the proposal, will campaign in his rural district this fall having opened new markets for his farmers.

Cuban-American Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republicans from anti-Castro districts in Florida, will be able to boast they scaled Nethercutt's original proposal so far back that what remains is little more than symbolic.

GOP leaders, unhappy with Nethercutt's tenacity on this politically tricky issue, will nonetheless send the Washington representative home with an important victory under his belt. The boost might help Nethercutt retain his seat and help the Republicans retain the House.

Party leaders also will be able to move the agriculture spending bill, which was stalled by the Cuba business for weeks, and stay on their ambitious course to pass all of this year's spending bills by the August recess.

After the late night session, Nethercutt defended his firm stand against his party's leadership: "I didn't come here to subcontract my vote to anyone," he said. "I'm fighting for my district and I'm fighting for agriculture across the country."


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Tuesday, June 27, 2000


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