US-Cuba Trade Suffering Under Bush Government

The poor turnout of US vendors at an international trade fair in Havana, Cuba points to the increasingly dismal state of the situation between Cuba and the United States. While matters were starting to look rosy about five years when the US began a more lenient policy of allowing trade between the two countries, the Bush government has steadily toughened up on trade laws, leading to an almost impossible situation.

An October 1962 embargo on communist Cuba has been upheld for decades in the United States. However, in 2001, the United States congress voted to allow agricultural exports to Cuba and many US companies saw this as a sign of a potential new marketing frontier. In that year, a roaringly successful separate trade fair was held in Havana that attracted over 800 vendors.

Unfortunately, this year?s trade fair saw a miserable 50 vendors who hardly made an effort to show their despondency and lack of enthusiasm. The reason for the sharp drop in interest by US countries, is due to the hard line approach taken by President George Bush to uphold the 1962 trade embargo against Cuba, in an attempt to bend the last bastion of Communism in the area. Bush has made trade with Cuba increasingly more expensive and imposed severe financial terms that limited the sellers? capabilities to compete in the market. As a result, food export fell sharply in the past two years, with 2005 recording only $350-million worth of trade. This is in sharp contrast to the numbers that were tallied when the US was once the top food supplier to Cuba.

                                 

Related News: