By Rudy Maxa
MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
For a country that’s been politically ostracized by the United States government
for nearly 40 years, Cuba boasts an impressive headquarters in Washington,
D.C.
More than 40 employees go to work every day in a stone mansion on 16th
Street, just
next door to the Polish embassy.
“But the United States has hundreds of employees in Havana,” notes Gustavo
Machin, the first secretary of the Cuban Interest Section that operates
under the
aegis of the Swiss embassy in Washington. A high black gate surrounds the
well-manicured lawn and gardens of the Cuban outpost. After a guard
buzzes the gate
open, a visitor approaches the mansion that is really an embassy in everything
but name
and enters a grand entrance hall whose centerpiece is a sweeping marble
staircase with a
blood-red carpet running up the steps. It looks like a set for “Evita.”
I’m visiting to discuss doing business in Cuba, and Machin, dressed informally
in a
short-sleeved green shirt, matching tie and thin corduroys, is happy to
oblige.
Except there isn’t much to discuss.
NO DEAL
While Cuba would be delighted to do business with Yankees, Americans and
American companies aren’t allowed to do business with Cuba. In fact, it’s
illegal for
most Americans, except for journalists and certain specific interest groups,
to even visit
Cuba. Americans aren’t supposed to spend a U.S. dollar there, though the
dollar is
commonly accepted as local tender. The Americans who do visit are supposed
to be
“hosted,” or sponsored, by resident Cubans.
But try telling that to the pleasure boaters from the States who routinely
sail over to
Cuba for a little respite and rum. Or to the American businessmen and women
who talk
deals in the lobby of the Hotel Nacional in Havana. Want a Coke? Some Kodak
film? No
problemo, though those American firms are legally prohibited from doing
business in Cuba.
What’s going on?
THE POLITICAL DOGHOUSE
What we have here is one of the strangest political and economic situations
Uncle Sam
has ever engineered. As European, South American and Asian firms invade
Cuba to strike
deals, Americans watch from the sidelines, eager to do business with a
country only 90 miles
offshore of Florida that needs lots of everything. And while the U.S. government
sends food
and medicine to traditional enemies including North Korea and encourages
trade with
Communist countries such as China, Cuba remains in the political doghouse.
“I think there’s a psychological thing that’s built up over the years,”
says Kirby Jones,
who for 24 years has run a Washington-based consulting firm, Alamar Associates,
that’s worked
with a long list of American companies curious about entering the Cuban
market.
“Castro has a beard and wears green fatigues and doesn’t look like your
normal head
of state. And he comes from a small country. The United States historically
hasn’t won a lot of
blue ribbons in dealing with small countries. We tend to want them to do
what we want them
to do, whether it’s Vietnam or El Salvador. But the Chinese, a big country,
or the former Soviet
Union, we cut them much more slack.”
The embargo against doing business with Cuba is maintained with the help
of a “very loud
and very effective, right-wing Cuban community,” as Jones describes the
largely lorida-based
Cuban-American community that loathes Fidel Castro.
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
But, still, American businesses are hopeful. Last May, Jones arranged a
seminar in Cancun
for executives from firms including Caterpillar, Texaco, Mobil Oil, Continental
Grain, Pharmacia,
Upjohn and Bristol-Myers Squibb. The purpose: to learn about business opportunities
in Cuba.
With the permission of the U.S. government, Kirby and more than 50 executives
traveled from
Cancun to Havana to meet with Cuban officials (including Castro) and Cuban
business types with
whom the Americans would be likely to partner.
But, so far, this is a relationship that hasn’t moved past foreplay for
decades. Because even as
Washington grants Jones and his conference participants permission to go
to Havana on a
fact-finding mission — Jones is hosting a second such seminar and trip,
at $3,250 per person, Sept.
9-12 — there’s little indication Washington will loosen trade restrictions.
HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS
“I was hopeful that as the Cold War ended, we’d find a way to change our
policies
toward Cuba, and, by the way, that Cuba would change some of its behavior,”
says Craig
Fuller, former chief of staff to Vice President George Bush and currently
an executive at
the headhunting firm Korn/Ferry. “I believe Cuba has made some changes.
They haven’t
gone as far as I’d hoped ... but it’s my view we ought to find ways to
bring about a series
of changes that ultimately will lead to expanded trade opportunities.”
Fuller, along with former congressman Sam Gibbons, heads an organization
begun
earlier this year under the auspices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called
Americans for
Humanitarian Trade With Cuba. The group wants to change American law to
permit American
firms to sell food and medicine to Cuba. There are some heavy hitters on
the group’s board,
including former Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, former U.S. Trade Representative
Carla Hills,
and philanthropist David Rockefeller.
“Cuba is the only nation that the United States prevents food and
medical sales to — it puts
burdens on the Cuban people that were never intended and should no longer
be tolerated,” says Lissa
Weinmann, a spokeswoman for Americans for Humanitarian Trade With Cuba.
The group has two bills pending in Congress; theSenate bill has 29 sponsors,
the House
version has 132 sponsors, says Weinmann. Both bills would essentially permit
the sale of food
and medicine to Cuba, though atleast in the latter category, the trade
might not be only oneway.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies have their eye on a vaccine against
meningitis B that Cuba’s
sophisticated biotechnology industry has developed. It’s a vaccine that
could save the lives of
American children, but the embargo prevents American firms from obtaining
it.
TAKE A NUMBER, PLEASE
“You clearly see all the road signs of our competitors worldwide having
organized
over there,” says H.P.Goldfield, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who has visited
Cuba.
“Dozens and dozens of companies from Korea, Japan and Europe are all over
Cuba,
and Cubans are not waiting for America to open its trade. We do lots of
business with
regimes with whom we don’t agree politically, and I don’t agree with Castro
or his
regime on almost all issues. But I don’t think we should end up last in
line, especially in
cases involving humanitarian benefits.”
Echoes Kirby Jones: “Havana is a wild West town for investments. Cuba is
a
country with a highly educated population and a disciplined work force
that’s been
closed to Western investment for 30 years.” Since Cuba opened its doors
to overseas
investments a few years ago, foreigners have rushed in — some 500 companies
have
offices therenow, says Jones. The Israelis are building a multi-purpose
building in Havana.
Hotels and resorts are opening on beaches. And how do those Cokes and other
American
products get there? They arrive from other countries.
Jones says Cuba would obviously like to deal with suppliers 90 miles away
rather
than 6,000 miles away. He says the first goods America could sell to Cuba
are obvious,
big-ticket items: corn, rice, wheat, soybeans, animal feed, pesticide,
fertilizers — all
commodities that “can be barged down the Mississippi.” Then there’s the
obvious lure
of tourism should Americans be allowed to visit. And construction entails
the sale of
equipment, supplies and know-how.
“We’re too late for mining,” says Jones. “Too late for hotel construction,
telecommunications, cement, textiles.There are now existing joint ventures
of a sizable
nature, so it’ll be tough for the United States to break in, unless, say,
a Sheraton or Marriott or
Inter-Continental wants to buy existing properties.”
BUSINESS GOES ON
But are there Americans actually doing business with Cuba today? A friend
tells me of a
guy in Los Angeles who has gotten rich bringing in Cuban cigars via Mexico
and then selling
them at a huge premium to restaurants and nightclubs in southern California
who sell them
under-the-counter for an even higher price. But he’s not as much a businessman
as a smuggler.
“American business people are operating illegally, selling products through
third
country intermediaries — construction material, shoes, it could be anything,”
says Weinmann
of the group that’s trying to pry open U.S. law by permitting sales of
food and medicine.
“You see a lot of American businessmen when you go to Havana, and most
are traveling there
illegally.”
But even Gustavo Machin of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington reminds
me, as we sit and chat in an anteroom with a polished wood floor and high
ceilings, that
U.S. law makes it illegal for Americans to do business, even through cut-outs
in other
countries. He doesn’t agree with the law, but he says when American business
types call
on him or his office for assistance, he’s helpless. Sure, he can suggest
a hotel in Havana,
and everyone knows it’s easy for an American to reach Cuba by flying out
of places such as
Canada, Nassau or Mexico. But trade? Not yet.
“The passion for keeping the embargo has not been matched so far
by the passion for
lifting it,” says John Howard, director of international policy and programs
at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. “The momentum, however, is increasing. It’s not just
business
people — the Pope said he thought the embargo was inhumane. And it’s nice
to have the
Pope on your side.”