Emerson, Blunt square off on expanding trade to Cuba

WASHINGTON -- With another fight simmering over travel to Cuba and trade with the communist nation, two Missouri lawmakers remain key players on opposite sides of the debate.

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., joined lawmakers from both parties Thursday in announcing a new "House Cuba Working Group" that will push for private financing for sales of rice and other farm commodities to the island, as well as lifting the ban on travel to Cuba.

"We all know embargoes only end up hurting our own farmers," she said during a news conference, adding that Cuba until 1961 was the top importer of U.S. rice and has since purchased $3 billion worth elsewhere.

Blunt opposition

Her fellow Republican, Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt, said Thursday he and fellow GOP leaders expect to prevail in scuttling efforts to relax the embargo. Blunt is chief deputy to the House Majority Whip, Republican Tom DeLay of Texas.

"The House leadership and the president will both oppose any change in Cuba policy this year," Blunt said. "I guess we'll take this one year at a time, but I don't see any substantial change in policy happening as long as Castro is in control in Cuba."

The Bush administration is insisting on the restrictions, arguing that relaxing the limits on travel and trade would aid the Cuban economy and extend Fidel Castro's reign. While farm-state lawmakers see Cuba as a potential $1 billion market for U.S. commodities, the administration says the island nation is too broke to be a major market.

The two Missouri Republicans represent most of southern Missouri, with Blunt's district in the west and Emerson's in the east.

Emerson, a member of the Appropriations Committee panel on farm spending, has visited Cuba twice, most recently in January on a trip with Rep. William Lacy Clay, a freshman Democrat from St. Louis, and four other lawmakers. The group dined for six hours with Castro, and Emerson said she detected a growing desire to do business with the United States.

She and supporters of ending the embargo pushed successfully to allow cash sales of food starting in 2000, but financing by the U.S. government or private entities were barred. Since a hurricane devastated the island last fall, Cuba has purchased an estimated $70 million in U.S. commodities.

Emerson said an executive of a company that sold food to Cuba told her the State Department had asked whether Cuba had actually paid the company.

"There's an attitude change that needs to take place," she said.

And on the travel restrictions, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said Americans deserve to see Castro's legacy for themselves.

"Every American should have the right to see first hand what a mess he has made of that island," Flake said.

Rep. William Delahunt pointed out that while the United States prevents most Americans from visiting Cuba, it allows travel to Iran and North Korea.

"By my calculation, that's two-thirds of the axis of evil," Delahunt said, referring to the controversial label President Bush gave Iraq, Iran and North Korea in his State of the Union address.

But Rep. Lincoln Diaz Balart, who leads embargo supporters, said Thursday it was "inconceivable that in the midst of a U.S. war on terrorism, a war that has cost American lives, members of Congress would actually propose that we become business partners with a terrorist dictatorship."