SECTION: ROP ZONE; Opinion; Pg. B4

LENGTH: 336 words

HEADLINE: First peas, next apples

BODY:
DESPITE President Bush's hard-line stance against Cuba, a Spokane company quietly is renewing a once-lucrative relationship with the fading Communist regime.

Spokane Seed Co. prepared a shipment of dry green peas bound for Cuba -- the first such shipment from Washington since U.S. trade relations with Cuba were severed four decades ago. Three Northwest processors are sending 3,000 metric tons, and another 2,000 tons will be shipped from North Dakota. Last month, Bush insisted he would keep general trade sanctions on Cuba, despite increasing pressure from American civic and business leaders to lift them.

The dry-pea transaction is possible only under the Trade Sanctions Relief Act of 2000, which lifted unilateral food and medicine sanctions against "countries of concern" -- Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt, a Spokane Republican, the act was designed primarily to reopen markets to struggling farmers, a major feat for this export-dependent state.

The act requires that sales to Cuba be made only for cash -- a requirement that is something of an obstacle since such transactions usually are completed with credit.

Nevertheless, Cuba has come up with about $90 million since November for a variety of U.S. food. The $1.1 million shipment of dry peas won't be Cuba's only import from Washington. Negotiations for about 1,000 metric tons of apples are expected to conclude next month.

No doubt the Cubans were tantalized by the apples proffered by members of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell's January trade trip there. Cantwell assisted Spokane Seed in renewing its old trading relationship.

Both Cantwell and Nethercutt are working on a way to permit credit sales of farm products to Cuba to boost these transactions that have been small in size but might grow large in impact for the struggling farm industry.

No doubt they will meet with some opposition from the Bush administration, but their efforts have made a good start.

LOAD-DATE: June 25, 2002