Measure to End Most Unilateral Export Bans Would Allow Food, Medicine Sales

                  By Thomas W. Lippman
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
 

                  The economic distress of the nation's farmers trumped 30 years of foreign
                  policy ideology this week as the Senate voted to lift the U.S. embargo on
                  the sale of food and medicine to Cuba.

                  Farm-state senators from both parties rallied to support an amendment to
                  the $68 billion agriculture spending bill that would lift most unilateral U.S.
                  embargoes on the export of food and medicine to Cuba and other
                  countries. It also would prohibit the president from imposing such bans in
                  the future without the consent of Congress.

                  If enacted, the measure would sharply curtail use of a standard weapon in
                  the foreign policy arsenal, the denial of access to U.S. agricultural bounty,
                  medicine and medical technology. The House version of the spending bill
                  contains no similar provision, so the outcome will be determined by a
                  House-Senate conference.

                  "This is a major shift in national policy and an important gain for farmers in
                  Missouri and the rest of the country," said the measure's sponsor, Sen.
                  John D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.). "At a time of drought and financial hardship
                  from low prices, this will protect farmers from being used as pawns of
                  diplomacy."

                  According to Philip Peters, an analyst of Latin American affairs at the
                  Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank, this is the first time that either
                  house of Congress has voted to ease trade sanctions on Cuba since 1992,
                  when Congress allowed resumption of normal payments for international
                  telephone calls to the island. In effect, Peters added, the Senate has
                  "almost completely dismantled the Cuba food and medicine embargo."

                  Americans for Humanitarian Trade With Cuba, a coalition of business,
                  religious and legal organizations that has opposed the ban on food and
                  medicine sales to Cuba, hailed the Senate action as "a milestone victory."
                  The group's executive director, Sylvia Wilhelm, a Cuban American, said in
                  a statement that "the Cuban people want and need food and medicine from
                  the U.S. and will applaud this important development."

                  The debate in the Senate, however, was not centered on Cuba. It was
                  about declining U.S. farm exports worldwide and the desire of agricultural
                  groups to eliminate unilateral food export bans. The Ashcroft amendment
                  does not even mention Cuba specifically--it eliminates unilateral export
                  bans, and thus would also apply to North Korea and other countries listed
                  by the State Department as sponsors of international terrorism.

                  It would not apply to Iraq or other countries to which sales are restricted
                  by United Nations sanctions.

                  The Senate passed the farm spending bill by voice vote. In the only
                  recorded vote on the Ashcroft amendment, a move to table it was
                  defeated, 70 to 28.

                  A Clinton administration spokesman said the White House "is prepared to
                  work with Congress" on crafting the final wording of the bill. Earlier this
                  year, President Clinton modified the Cuba trade embargo to authorize
                  limited sales of food and fertilizer to independent, non-governmental
                  organizations in Cuba.

                  Advocates of ending the embargo on Cuba said the president's decision
                  has had little if any effect because the only food industry entities in Cuba
                  not controlled by President Fidel Castro's Communist government are
                  small family-owned restaurants with no purchasing power.

                  The Ashcroft amendment would still require Treasury Department export
                  licenses for sales to countries on the terrorism list, but exporters could
                  obtain general licenses for a year at a time, rather than having to seek a
                  separate license for each transaction.