Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran asked President Obama to lift the restrictions on the sale of U.S. farm products — such as Kansas wheat — to Cuba.
In a letter to the president this week, Sen. Moran estimated that liberalizing trade policy would “result in $270 million in new exports.”
Sen. Moran has been consistent in supporting more trade with our neighbor off Florida’s coast. He made a similar plea to President Bush. The Cubans would be delighted to have the opportunity to buy more food — and everything else they may need that the U.S. produces.
But trade has been highly restricted with that dirt-poor nation of 11 million for half a century by our embargo and other punitive policies.
It was good for Sen. Moran to press his case for selling commodities to Cuba; it would be even better if the senator would take it upon himself to lead a coalition of the reasonable to lift the embargo entirely and treat Cuba as a neighbor rather than an enemy.
Cuba is one of the very few communist nations remaining. It has no free press, radio or television and makes a futile effort to censor the Internet. Almost all of the jobs are government jobs which pay $20 to $30 a month in an economy where experts estimate that it takes $80 a month to keep body and soul together.
I spent last week in Cuba with a press group and will report on the trip in one or more of next week’s editions.
When we asked out guide how she and her fellow Cubans managed on such meager incomes, she smiled and an-swered, “by magic.” I’ll expand on that next week.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
