POR: CAPITOL HILL CUBANS
October 8, 2010
Kudos to The Minnesota Daily's Editorial Board.
First, for its thoughtful review of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson's (D-MN) Cuba bill. Needless to say, we disagree with its final conclusion regarding sanctions, but appreciate its realistic view of the "smoke-screen" agricultural provisions within the legislation.
And foremost, for being the very first publication to highlight the political contributions of the farm bureaus and multinational agri-business giants. This stands in refreshing contrast to a majority of publications, which only like to take irresponsible and biased pot-shots -- including Chairman Peterson himself -- at Cuban-American political activism and contributions -- even though agricultural political contributions stymie those of Cuban-Americans.
It's a must-read:
From Heartland to Havana
A lopsided Cuban trade proposal aimed to help farmers falls short.
Minnesota Democrats Rep. Collin Peterson and Sen. Amy Klobuchar might seem like odd candidates to jump into the muddy waters of U.S.-Cuba relations. Yet together, they've authored a pair of bills that would lift a decades-old travel ban to Cuba and poke holes in the U.S. trade embargo of that island nation.
But Peterson has made clear that this effort isn't about Cuba; it's about American farmers needing new markets. Peterson is the current chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and his 7th district covers a heavily agricultural swath of the state. OpenSecret.org's list of his top campaign contributors also reads like a who's-who of national and international agribusiness interests, with the multinational agricultural corporation, Monsanto, topping the bill.
Steve Suppan, a policy analyst for the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said in an e-mail that agribusiness giants like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have "long sought" exemptions from the Cuban embargo, which would eliminate the need for them to trade through third-country loopholes as they currently do. He argues this exemption, which would primarily move commodities whose production is "highly mechanized," is hardly the pro-farmer job-creation engine its authors suggest.
There are in fact excellent reasons — economic, cultural and otherwise — to open relations with an apparently reforming Cuba, which has been singled out as a communist pariah for too long. It is time to re-evaluate our gratuitous, Cold-War-era posture toward this close neighbor. To that end, lifting the travel ban is of undeniable importance, but this narrow proposal that comes from Minnesota's congress-people reeking of special interests falls short of a productive solution.
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