SECTION: BUSINESS; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 401 words

HEADLINE: U.S. coalition wants end to Cuba trade embargo

SOURCE: Staff

BYLINE: JENALIA MORENO

BODY:
A year after 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his family in Cuba, a coalition is marking the anniversary by demanding an end to the U.S. embargo on trade with the island country.

The ban on trade costs the Texas economy $ 387 million annually, according to a study conducted by Rice University economics professor Ron Soligo.

The professor presented that figure at a news conference Thursday at City Hall, where a rice farmer and officials from the Washington, D.C.-based Cuba Policy Foundation joined him. The U.S. banned most trade with Cuba nearly 40 years ago after the Bay of Pigs invasion and in protest of President Fidel Castro's relations with the Soviet Union.

At Florida ports, warehouses that were once filled with Cuban cigars stand empty and decaying as many in the state still hang onto the dream that riches will be made once the ban is lifted. Ports in Texas also lost imports of sugar from the island and exports of rice.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba's benefactor, there's been a growing call to lift the embargo. Cuba Policy Foundation President Sally Grooms Cowal called the policy against trade with Cuba a failure because it has not brought about democratic changes there and has hurt the U.S. economy.

Last fall, a bill was passed that allowed U.S. agriculture exports to Cuba.

However, Castro reportedly has said he refuses to buy one grain of rice from the United States until the embargo is completely lifted.

In hopes of a total lifting of the embargo, delegations of farmers and business owners have trekked to Cuba to research how much money they could make selling their products to the island.

Beaumont rice farmer Jim Smith has twice visited Cuba in the past two years. He's even met with Castro and heard promises from Cuban officials that once the ban is lifted, Cuba will buy rice the next day from the United States.

The benefit to Cuba of free trade with the United States is its proximity. A ship sailing from Texas, for example, to Cuba would take only a week. However, ordering rice from China costs Cuba more because of the six-week transit time.

Critics of trade with Cuba said the country is not paying its bills to its other suppliers of products such as rice and wheat.

"I think that is one of the ploys that is being used to say that they're not paying for their food," Smith said. "I assure you, they are eating."



TYPE: -LINKS-

LOAD-DATE: April 21, 2001