By Marc Frank

 HAVANA (Reuters) - Despite four decades of trade sanctions and increasing White House hostility,
 Cuba has become the United States's 35th market for food exports, according to a report by a New
 York-based business group on Tuesday.

 Cuba's purchases of American agricultural products doubled last year, as U.S. agribusiness giants sold
 more and more grain to the Caribbean island thanks to an easing of the embargo.

 The U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which monitors trade between the two countries, said Cuba
 imported $256.9 million worth of U.S. agricultural products in 2003.

 Since food sales were allowed in 2000, Cuba has moved up from 144th position among U.S. markets, to
 50th in 2002 and 35th last year, the council's analysis of U.S. government data said.

 The trade surge came as the Bush administration clamped down on travel to Cuba and studied other
 measures to increase economic pressure on President Fidel Castro's communist-run government.

 President Bush last year appointed a commission to come up with ways to accelerate a transition to
 democracy in Cuba, where Castro has been in power since a 1959 revolution.

 American business groups, meanwhile, have been lobbying for the lifting of a travel ban and further
 relaxing of the embargo. Both chambers of the U.S. Congress last year voted to end travel restrictions,
 but Republican leadership scuttled the move in conference.

 PRESSURE ON CUBA

 "While the Bush administration is trying to intensify pressure on Cuba and sever business links with the
 Castro government, such an attempt is increasingly at odds with the position of the U.S. business
 community and its allies in Congress," said University of Florida Cuba analyst Paolo Spadoni.

 "With Cuba's food purchases from the Unites States up by more than 80 percent in 2003 after an
 impressive 2002, it is likely that anti-embargo forces will keep pushing for a lifting of trade and travel
 restrictions with the island," he said.

 Tensions between Washington and Havana continued rising after the Bush administration pulled out of
 immigration talks, the only regular contacts the two governments have in the absence of diplomatic ties
 broken off in 1961.

 In two speeches this month, Castro charged that Bush was plotting to assassinate him and invade Cuba.

 The Cuban leader said Bush's growing hostility was aimed at winning votes among politically influential
 Cuban-Americans in the key state of Florida in this year's presidential election.

 Florida is home to hundreds of thousands of Cubans, who played a big role in winning the presidency for
 Bush in 2000.

 The exports, mainly soy, wheat, corn, rice and poultry, but also supermarket products, lumber and
 newsprint, have led to a growing lobby in the United states to broaden trade and travel with Cuba.

 The council said Cuban purchases, begun in late 2001, amounted to $400 million through 2003. Cuba
 pays cash for purchases from the United States, with some financing from non-U.S. banks.

 Decatur, Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland Company accounted for approximately 50 percent of the
 sales, the council said, followed by agribusiness giant Cargill and FCStone, a Minnesota group of farm
 cooperatives.