Bipartisan project of five senators seeks to lift the trade embargo on Cuba

A bipartisan group of five US senators introduced a bill on Monday seeking to lift Washington’s trade embargo on Cuba, with the goal of “creating new economic opportunities and allowing Cubans access to US goods.”

The proposed Freedom to Export to Cuba Act is promoted by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, and Republicans Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall.

The legislation seeks to eliminate articles in existing laws that block Americans from doing business in Cuba, but maintains those based on human rights abuses and historical seizures of American property on the island.

“I have long pushed to reform our relationship with Cuba, which for decades has been defined by conflicts of the past rather than looking to the future,” Klobuchar said in a joint statement.

“By ending the trade embargo with Cuba once and for all, our bipartisan legislation will turn the page on the failed policy of isolation, while creating a new export market and generating economic opportunity for American companies,” he added.

Moran noted that “the embargo…blocks our farmers, ranchers and manufacturers from selling in a market just 90 miles from our shores, while foreign competitors benefit.”

In Murphy’s opinion, the US can “expand opportunities for US businesses and farmers to trade with Cuba while still holding the Cuban government accountable for its human rights record.”

“This bipartisan legislation is an adjustment that will create jobs in the US and benefit the Cuban people,” he added.

The Freedom to Export to Cuba Act removes all current restrictions on doing business with Cuba, including the original 1961 authorization that established the trade embargo, subsequent laws that strengthened the embargo, and other statutes that prohibit transactions between U.S.-owned firms or controlled by the US, and the limitations on direct shipments between US ports and Cuba, the statement said.

Cuba needs agricultural imports to feed the 11 million people who live on the island and the roughly 4 million tourists who visited the country before the pandemic.

The US International Trade Commission considers that if the restrictions on trade with Cuba were lifted, exports of wheat, rice, corn and soybeans would increase by 166% in five years to some 800 million dollars, he explained in a document.

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