[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 138 (Tuesday, December 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11869-S11870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SALE OF AGRICULTURAL GOODS TO CUBA
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I want to speak today about several items,
the first of which is the sale of agricultural goods to Cuba.
Some years ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft, who then was a U.S.
Senator, and I, offered an amendment that opened the opportunity to
sell agricultural commodities into the Cuban marketplace. For over 40
years that marketplace had been closed to American farmers because of
an embargo.
The bill that Congress passed was called the Trade Sanctions Reform
and Export Enhancement Act of 2000. It permitted agricultural sales to
Cuba on the condition that the Cubans had to use cash in order to
purchase agricultural commodities from this country. We have now sold
over $900 million worth of farm commodities to the Cuban marketplace
for cash. In fact, about 1\1/2\ or 2 years ago, 22 train carloads of
dried peas left North Dakota to be shipped into the Cuban marketplace--
the first time in 42 years our farmers had an opportunity to sell into
this market that the Canadians and the Europeans had been selling into
all along.
That is what we did in the legislation. I felt that having an embargo
on food shipments to Cuba all those years was wrong. It didn't affect
Fidel Castro. We tried to injure Fidel Castro by slapping on this
embargo which included food and medicine, which I thought was an
insidious policy. It didn't hurt Fidel Castro. He never missed a
breakfast, lunch, or dinner because we were not able to sell food into
Cuba.
The same is true with travel restrictions. We prohibited Americans
from traveling into Cuba except for those who are able to get a license
from the Treasury Department, which is increasingly difficult to do.
Restricting the American people's right to travel is not hurting Fidel
Castro. It simply injures the American people. We can travel in
Communist China and in Communist Vietnam but we can't travel in Cuba. I
have held up a picture on the floor of the Senate of Joni Scott. She
went to Cuba to distribute free Bibles. This administration's Treasury
Department tracked her down and said we are going to try to slap a
$10,000 fine on you for distributing free Bibles in Cuba. I have also
shown the picture of Joan Slote, a retired senior Olympian in her
midseventies. She went to ride a bicycle in Cuba with a Canadian group.
The Treasury tracked her down even as she was dealing with her son's
brain cancer and slapped a fine on her and threatened, by the way, to
seize her Social Security payments.
It is outrageous what this policy has been with respect to Cuba. But
we had a small victory when Senator Ashcroft and I were able to change
the law so that our farmers and ranchers could sell into the Cuban
marketplace. Since then we have sold $900 million of agricultural
commodities for cash to Cuba.
In recent weeks something else has happened. It is apparent this
administration is fighting every possible way to shut down the
opportunities of farmers and ranchers to sell into the Cuban
marketplace. Here is a new way. This chart shows part of the Trade
Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 legislation. Here
are the words that stipulate that the Cubans must pay ``cash in
advance'' for food they purchase. And that is exactly what the Cubans
have done for about $900 million in shipments so far. But someone at
Treasury took a look at this, and said, You know, there is a way to
interpret these words to shut down these shipments even tighter. We
will interpret cash in advance to mean the cash must be received by the
exporter before anything can be shipped toward Cuba.
That is much different from the way the term cash in advance has been
generally understood by the export community and the way I as an author
would have understood what we meant. Up to now, cash in advance meant
that you must pay cash before you take receipt of the product. That
ship goes to Cuba with dried peas, or wheat, or flour, or beef. Before
it is offloaded and the Cubans take possession, they must pay cash to
the seller. It is very simple. You pay cash before you take possession
of the product.
The Treasury Department has now found a way to say, Not good enough.
The way sales have been made to Cuba for the past three years is not
what the Treasury thinks the legislation says. We insist that the
phrase cash in advance means you pay cash before anything gets loaded
on the ship.
What is this about? It is about someone down at the Treasury
Department who has decided they have found another way to see if they
can stop our farmers and ranchers from selling into the Cuban
marketplace. I was an author of the legislation, and they need to
understand that I knew what I was doing, and I believe my colleague
Senator Ashcroft and others in the Congress knew what they were doing.
We were trying to provide access to the Cuban marketplace.
This country has now said for almost two dozen years the way to move
Communist countries such as China and Vietnam toward greater human
rights is through more trade and travel engagement to move them in the
right direction. We have said that with China and with Vietnam, both
Communist countries. The exception is Cuba. They say if we begin to
allow people to travel in Cuba, to trade with Cuba, somehow that is
pernicious and moves in the wrong direction.
At some point you have to say that is an argument that is completely
devoid of common sense. But Congress has already acted on this. The
Congress said it is all right and we believe we should be able to trade
with Cuba provided that sale is for cash. The Cubans buy agricultural
commodities from us.
[[Page S11870]]
They pay for it through a European bank with cash so that no direct
transfer of funds from Cuba to a U.S. institution. And now there is
someone who has found a way to restrict this, to try to interrupt rice
shipments and other shipments to Cuba.
The farm community was caught unaware by this issue. I was unaware of
it. Once we discovered it, I called people in the Bush administration
to ask, What on earth are you doing this time? Can't you get it
straight that this Congress has already said this is the law, this is
the way the law reads? I have asked, by the way, the Inspector General
at the Department of the Treasury to investigate what OFAC--called the
Office of Foreign Assets Control--is doing here. Essentially, the
Office of Foreign Assets Control at Treasury is supposed to be tracking
money to terrorists. They are supposed to be shutting down the funding
for Osama bin Laden. They are supposed to be tracking the network of
funds around the world that finances terrorism.
But what are the people at OFAC doing? They are tracking down Joan
Slote and Joni Scott who traveled to Cuba to ride bicycles and
distribute free Bibles. They are spending time trying to figure out how
they can reinterpret Federal law to try to put a wrench in the
crankcase of farmers and ranchers who are trying to sell into the Cuban
marketplace. They ought to be ashamed of themselves down at OFAC. They
know better than that.
When Secretary of Treasury O'Neill testified at a hearing a couple of
years ago, I asked him repeatedly about this. He finally answered, but
he didn't want to. I asked him, Wouldn't you, with some common sense,
much rather use your assets in OFAC to track the financing of
terrorists than track Americans who are suspected of taking a vacation
in Cuba? Finally, he said, Sure, sure.
The OFAC is not a very big agency. But they have over 20 people who
are tracking this Cuba issue trying to nab an American person who is
suspected of taking vacations in Cuba or trying to find ways to
reinterpret the law to shut down agricultural trade to Cuba. They have
more people doing that than they have tracking Osama bin Laden, and
trying to shut down Osama bin Laden's network of funding to support his
terrorist activity.
OFAC ought to be ashamed. What a false choice for the security of
this country. And what a false choice for the welfare and benefit of
family farmers and ranchers, just like the Europeans and Canadians and
others who have access to this marketplace. My hope is they will have a
meeting in the administration. My understanding is they had one late
yesterday afternoon, or will have one today, and perhaps some common
sense will prevail. If not, we will find a way here on the floor of the
Congress to see if we can't make the right thing happen and perhaps
force them to use their resources--or perhaps if they are misusing
their resources, to diminish the resources they have.
In any event, we have a significant problem in agricultural trade.
Ten years ago, we had a $25 billion agricultural trade surplus. This
year, it is $9 billion. It shrank from $25 billion to $9 billion, and
next year it is expected to be zero. For the first time in over 50
years we will not have a surplus in agricultural trade, according to
the estimates in the administration.
If that is the case, why are they trying to shut down our sales of
agricultural product to Cuba? It doesn't make sense at all to me.
I hope those in the administration who have done this and who think
that redefining the meaning of cash in advance is a genius scheme to
try to thwart the will of Congress will think through it more clearly
and understand it is a harebrained scheme that doesn't comport at all
with the law. My hope is they will finally get that message.
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