Embargo or not, the United States is now Fidel Castro's economic partner

HAVANA -- MANY Cubans dubbed 2002 “The Year of the Americans”, and for good reason. Although in theory the United States maintains its embargo against
Fidel Castro's communist government with as much fervour as when it was first introduced in 1960, in practice contacts are growing fast. Since 2000, American companies have been allowed to sell food to Cuba, but only for cash. In 2002, they shipped food worth around $165m, helping to turn the United States into Cuba's tenth-biggest trading partner, according to unofficial estimates.

Along with the food shipments have come politicians and businessmen eager to talk to el comandante. Mr Castro joked to one of dozens of congressmen he has wined and dined that he had no complaints about spending more time with Americans than with other foreigners—except that he was tired of signing baseballs.

Ordinary Cubans rave about the long-forbidden fruit arriving on their tables. Juicy and crisp American apples are hawked on street corners. Meaty American chickens are rationed at neighbourhood stores. American rice is said to be fluffier than the Vietnamese or Chinese varieties Cubans have grown used to. Even such icons of imperialism as chewing gum and peanut butter are now on sale.

Then there are the tourists. The Clinton administration eased the ban on travel to the island, to allow visits by professional people and the 1m Cuban-Americans. Now, there are 26 flights a week between the United States and Cuba. In all, around 200,000 Americans came in 2001—more than from any other country except
Canada. Three-fifths of the visitors were Cuban-Americans, but 50,000 were tourists who travelled via third countries, with or without their government's approval.

The United States also provides Cuba with money in two other ways. Remittances from Cuban-Americans now total perhaps $800m a year. And there is increasing indirect American investment in the island: many of the multinationals from Europe and Canada that have set up operations in Cuba since Mr Castro's opening to
foreign investment a decade ago count American institutions among their shareholders.

This budding relationship is prompting jealousy from businessmen and diplomats from countries in Europe and Latin America that have never placed restrictions on trade with Cuba. They are irritated that Mr Castro pays so much attention to his old enemy, and cash for its food, when they often cannot get an audience and are paid late, if at all, for their products, despite offering credit. They grumble, too, that while Washington threatens sanctions against others who do business with Cuba, the United States is dumping subsidised food on the island. Each week sees another American ship dock at a Cuban port; any foreign ship that does the same is banned from entering an American port for six months.

Despite all the insults still hurled across the Florida straits, “the embargo is becoming a sieve”, says a European diplomat. All the more reason to scrap it.