HAVANA: Agricultural trade between Cuba and the United States has fallen by hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, according to data published recently by the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council and the Washington Post.
This trend has continued over the past year in spite of recent efforts by US President Barack Obama to open up trade between the two countries.
Exports from Cuba to the US have fallen from $14.4 million from January through August 2014, to $2.4 million during the corresponding period this year, the US-CTEC announced on Monday.
Agricultural imports to Cuba from the US have fallen in recent years as well, from $710 million in 2008 to $150 million projected for this year, according to the Washington Post.
Though part of the decline in Cuban exports was attributed by the US-CTEC to avian flu issues that affected poultry shipments, analysts are attributing most of the decline in trade activity to political tensions between the governments.
“[Cuba is] playing a game of chicken, hoping Congress will ease sanctions,” international regulatory lawyer Poblete Tamargo told the Miami Herald. “The concessions made by the president were significant, and yet you don’t see any evidence of Cuba reforming their economy or addressing US concerns such as certified claims or human rights.”
Cuban officials are blaming the US for the decline, arguing that ongoing sanctions ban most exports, block most US tourism, and make banking nearly impossible.
Maria del Carmen Orellana, an official in Cuba’s tourism ministry, illustrated that argument last Thursday when she said a French investor recently pulled out of Cuba because his Paris-based bank, PNB Paribas, now bars its clients from doing business with Cuba.
“[PNB Paribas] agreed to a $9 billion fine last year by the US Treasury Department for violations of economic sanctions related to Cuba, Sudan and Iran,” wrote Washington Post Latin correspondent Nick Miroff. “The steps Obama has taken to date don’t go far enough to ease the stigma.”
US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said last week that both parties have to make efforts to repair their relationship and improve economic relations.
“I’m here because we need to develop relationships with each other and start to learn from one another,” she told reporters last week, according to the Post.
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