Maine governor latest to sign Cuba trade deal

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Maine Gov. John Baldacci, the third U.S.
governor to travel to Cuba this year in search of trade, won a
deal on Sunday to sell $20 million in farm goods to the
country’s state-run food import agency.

“We appreciate our trade with Cuba. It is good for our
farmers and good for our state,” Baldacci said, after signing a
series of documents with Cuba’s Alimport.

The governor of Nebraska visited Cuba in November and the
governor of Louisiana in March, each walking away with similar
agreements and meeting with President Fidel Castro.

Baldacci, a Democrat, is in Cuba with a delegation of
businessmen, farmers and state officials. He arrived on Sunday
and was expected to see Castro before departing on Monday,
while other delegates may stay longer to negotiate contracts.

Food sales to Cuba on a cash basis only were approved by
Congress in 2000 as an exception to the U.S. trade embargo
enforced against Castro’s leftist government since 1962.

In those five years, Cuba has grown to become the 26th
largest market for U.S. agricultural exports, from 225th.

Alimport Chairman Pedro Alvarez said in a recent interview
that the United States was Cuba’s biggest food supplier,
selling cereals, grains, poultry and other products.

The Bush administration, a fierce Castro critic with strong
political ties to Cuban-Americans in Florida, has tried to
hamper sales by tightening regulations and denying visas to
Cuban agriculture inspectors.

U.S. farm groups strongly support the trade, as do many
national and state-level politicians who are pushing for a
further relaxation of U.S. sanctions.

Alvarez said on Sunday that food purchases from the United
states amounted to $493 million so far this year, including
shipping and other costs, compared with $474 million in 2004.

Cuba had already signed agreements to purchase Maine
seed-potatoes and apples this year, but Alvarez said the deals
had not materialized because the United States denied visas to
his inspectors to visit Maine.

“We have to work with the congress and the administration
on licensing and visas,” Baldacci said, adding it would be a
“step by step” process to further improve relations with the
communist-run country.