US Agribusiness Licking Its Chops Over Thawed Cuba Relations

One group that appears to be licking its chops over the newly-thawed relations between the United States and Cuba is U.S. agribusiness.

Though the change does not end the embargo, the White House states that it does “[a]uthorize expanded sales and exports of certain goods and services from the U.S. to Cuba.”

Reuters explains: “U.S. law exempted food from a decades-old embargo on U.S. trade with the Cuba, but cumbersome rules on how transactions were executed made deals difficult and costly. The U.S. policy shift should eliminate these hurdles.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in statement that the change “expands opportunity for U.S. farmers and ranchers to do business in Cuba. It removes technical barriers between U.S. and Cuban companies and creates a more efficient, less burdensome opportunity for Cuba to buy U.S. agricultural products. It also makes those products far more price competitive, which will expand choices for Cuban shoppers at the grocery store and create a new customer base for America’s farmers and ranchers.”

C. Parr Rosson III, head of the agricultural economics department at Texas A&M University, told the Associated Press that the change could soon mean $400 million to $450 million in sales of U.S. agricultural product to Cuba, compared to $350 million in 2013.

The National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) and U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) cheered the change as well, with USW President Alan Tracy stating that the group’s “market share there could grow from its current level of zero to around 80-90 percent, as it is in other Caribbean nations.”