[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 186 (Friday, December 11, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12978-S12980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TRADE WITH CUBA

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to speak about a 
speech a colleague, for whom I have great affection, gave yesterday on 
the floor of the

[[Page S12979]]

Senate. He was concerned about a provision in the appropriations bill 
that is now being considered, a provision dealing with the sale of 
agricultural commodities to Cuba.
  My colleague said the provision would undo current law, where the 
Castro regime in Cuba would have to pay in advance for goods being sold 
to them because of their terrible credit history.
  That is not an accurate statement. I expect there is just a 
misunderstanding. I would be very happy if my colleague would wish to 
have a colloquy on the floor to set out the law and the provision in 
the bill so all of us understand the same thing.
  No. 1, I helped write the law that finally opened just a small 
crevasse--the ability of our farmers in America to sell their 
agricultural commodities into the Cuban marketplace. Why did I do that? 
Because we have an embargo on Cuba that, in my opinion, has failed for 
40 or 50 years. At the time that embargo included restricting the sale 
of food to the Cuban people.
  I do not think we ought to ever embargo food shipments anywhere in 
the world. I think it is immoral. I do not think we ever ought to use 
food as a weapon. Yet that is exactly what has been done.
  Our farmers could not sell agricultural commodities into Cuba. 
Canadian farmers could. French farmers could. German farmers could. 
American farmers could not.
  I changed the law, along with a Republican colleague, with a Dorgan-
Ashcroft amendment. We changed the law. We opened it just a crack so 
American farmers could sell their commodities into the Cuban 
marketplace. But it had to be for cash. The Cubans had to pay cash in 
advance. I support that. I helped write the law.
  In fact, what I would like to do is put up a copy of the current law. 
The current law indicates ``cash in advance.'' We have sold about $3 
billion of agricultural commodities into the Cuban marketplace since 
the law was passed, and they have paid cash in advance.
  What happened was, President Bush decided just prior to an election 
that he wanted to send a signal that he was really tightening things 
with Cuba. He decided to change the definition--not by law but by 
administrative fiat--and he said ``cash in advance'' will mean the 
Cubans have to pay for the commodity even before it is shipped from a 
port in the United States. For four years up to then, the government 
allowed U.S. farmers to ship the goods from the port and then have the 
Cubans pay cash when the commodity arrives in Cuba. The President made 
that change as an attempt to shut down the sale of agricultural 
commodities to Cuba.
  Here is what the Calgary Herald, a Canadian newspaper, said: ``Cuba 
to Buy $70 Million of Canadian Wheat.'' Then in the body of the article 
it says:

       Cuban food purchases from Canada will increase 40 percent 
     this year due to difficulties buying from the United States 
     which is requiring payment before shipment of the food sales.

  As I said, President Bush tightened the rules to say that ``cash in 
advance,'' in a law I wrote, shall be interpreted as meaning you must 
pay even before the shipment. I have never even considered the phrase 
could be interpreted like that, but that is the way the law is now 
being administered.
  In the pending appropriations bill, there is an amendment I included. 
It is not, in my judgment, something we ought to debate. It is just 
there. We ought to understand it. It very simply says this.

       During fiscal year 2010, for purposes of . . . the Trade 
     Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 . . . the 
     term ``payment of cash in advance'' shall be interpreted as 
     payment before the transfer of title to, and the control of, 
     the exported items to the Cuban purchaser.

  It takes the definition of ``payment of cash in advance'' back it to 
how it was originally interpreted after I got my bill passed and we 
started selling into the Cuban marketplace. It restores it to what it 
was.
  My colleague yesterday said this would undo the current law where the 
Castro regime would have to pay in advance. Obviously, that is not the 
case. It is just not the case. ``Payment of cash in advance shall be 
interpreted'' to mean ``payment before the transfer of title to, and 
control of, the exported items . . . '' There is nothing here 
suggesting credit be offered to the Cuban regime. This only resolves an 
issue that was created when President Bush wanted to shut off 
agricultural commodity shipments to the country of Cuba. As I 
indicated, the result of the Bush administration's interpretation is 
what the Calgary Herald wrote about: American farmers, watch the 
Canadians grab your market.
  Why on Earth should we withhold food shipments anywhere? It makes no 
sense to me. Why should we say to our farmers who produce foods--and we 
need to export that food--that the Canadians can have an advantage, the 
Europeans can have an advantage, they can service that market but we 
cannot, even though we require cash in advance. Lets make it even 
harder by requiring payment before shipping even. That makes no sense 
to me. That is why I wanted to correct it. I wanted to correct it to 
get it back to what the law reads.
  My colleague who spoke on this issue yesterday is a good Senator and 
somebody I like a lot, but he indicates that this amendment of mine 
undoes current law where the Castro regime would have to pay in 
advance. That is just not the case. That is not the case.
  Maybe the best way for us to resolve this is, let's do a colloquy on 
the floor to put in the Record the exact language, because the shipment 
of agricultural commodities to Cuba in the future will continue to 
require cash payments in advance. That is just a fact.
  Let me say also, my colleagues--I use the term plural--who feel very 
strongly about this issue, the Cuba issue, we have common cause. I have 
no truck for the Cuban Government. I want the Cuban people to be free. 
I have no sympathy for the Cuban Government. But it is interesting to 
me that our engagement with Communist China and Communist Vietnam, for 
example, is to say that constructive engagement through trade and 
travel is the best way to address those issues. We believe that. Except 
we say in Cuba that we do not believe it. We restrict the right of the 
American people to travel to Cuba, which is slapping around the rights 
of the American people in order to poke our finger in the eye of Fidel 
Castro, I guess. And we do other things that make no sense.
  My colleagues who have raised these issues actually won on one issue 
that kind of bothers me. I also put an amendment in this legislation 
that I understand now has been emasculated. Let me describe what that 
was.
  Most people do not know this, but we have airplanes flying over Cuba, 
at least in international waters, broadcasting television signals to 
Cuba. I was able to get that shut down in an amendment in the 
appropriations process because we are broadcasting television signals 
to Cuba to tell the Cuban people how great freedom is--they can hear 
that on a Miami station 90 miles away--but we are broadcasting 
television signals being broadcast by an airplane and the signals are 
signals the Cuban people cannot see. Isn't that interesting? It is 
called TV Marti. Here is a picture of what TV Marti broadcasts. That is 
the television screen for TV Marti. The Cubans block it easily, and the 
Cuban people do not see it and cannot see it.
  We started out broadcasting that with aerostat balloons. They called 
it Fat Albert. This is the second one. The first one got loose. Fat 
Albert got loose. It was tethered on a big, long tether, hanging way up 
in the air, to broadcast television signals to the Cuban people that 
the Cubans were blocking. So we are spending a lot of money 
broadcasting television signals that nobody can see. In the first case, 
we had aerostat balloons, huge balloons, tethered way up in the air, 
spending millions of dollars a year. One got loose and flew over the 
Everglades, and they had a devil of a time trying to capture Fat 
Albert. So they got a second Fat Albert and kept broadcasting signals 
no one could see. But that wasn't good enough. In fact, they decided: 
You know what, we are going to get ourselves a big fat airplane and we 
will fly that airplane around and broadcast signals to Cuba from an 
airplane. And those signals, too, by the way, are routinely blocked and 
no one can see them. In my judgment we should not waste that kind of 
money.
  John Nichols, professor of communications and international affairs 
at Penn State University had this to say.

[[Page S12980]]

He is one of the experts on communications policy.

       TV Marti's quest to overcome the laws of physics has been a 
     flop. Aero Marti, the airborne platform for TV Marti, has no 
     audience currently in Cuba, and it is a complete and total 
     waste of $6 million a year in taxpayer dollars.

  The $6 million is just for the airplane. They spend much more than 
that on TV Marti.

       It is a total and complete waste of $6 million a year in 
     taxpayer dollars. The audience of TV Marti, particularly the 
     Aero Marti platform, is probably zero.

  We have been doing this for 10 years and more. Since I raised this 
issue, we have spent $\1/4\ billion broadcasting television signals 
into a country that cannot see them.
  Let me continue:

       TV Marti's response to this succession of failures over a 
     two-decade period has been to resort to ever more expensive 
     technological gimmicks, all richly funded by Congress, and 
     none of those gimmicks, such as the airplane, have worked or 
     probably can work without the compliance of the Cuban 
     Government. It is just the law of physics.
       In short, TV Marti is a highly wasteful and ineffective 
     operation.

  I put in an amendment that cut $15 million out of this program. I 
know it is radical to say you should not broadcast to people who cannot 
see them. I suspect this must be considered some sort of jobs program. 
That would be the only excuse for continuing funding.
  I had an amendment that shut down TV Marti. If ever--ever, ever--
there were an opportunity to cut government waste, this is it. This is 
just a program that accomplishes nothing and has no intrinsic value at 
all. But in the middle of a very significant economic downturn, when 
deficits have spiked up, up, way up, I apparently cannot even get this 
done. I got it done in the Senate, but it did not get through the 
conference. I guess for the next year or so--Fat Albert is retired--the 
airplane will still fly. And here is a television set in Cuba sees of 
TV Marti snow, static. We will continue to spend $15 million or so so 
the Cubans can look at static on their television sets. It is not much 
of a bargain for the American taxpayer, I would say.
  I only point this out because I lost on this issue. Those who feel 
strongly that we ought to continue to do this won. I hope that one day, 
perhaps we could agree that when we spend money, let's spend it on 
things that work, spend it on things that are effective, spend it on 
things that advance our interest and our values. This certainly does 
not.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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