Colorado courting Cuba
Business, government consider strengthening trade ties
By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 26, 2008 at 5 p.m.
Sven Creutzmann / Mambo Photography/Getty Images/2007
American and Cuban icons mingle in Old Havana's Revolution Square. Businesses and government officials in Colorado are intrigued by the possibility of boosting exports to Cuba and may try to enlist Gov. Bill Ritter to join a trade delegation to the country.
Editor's note: Rocky staff writer Jeff Kass traveled to Cuba this year and followed two stories with Colorado business connections.
The Havana Hilton became Fidel Castro's temporary headquarters 50 years ago when he marched victoriously into this capital city. Today, the retro lobby is abuzz with tourists lounging in oversize rattan chairs. Along the wall is a photo of Castro's guerrillas dressed in fatigues and cradling guns.
The hotel, now called the Havana Libre, was the site of yet another incongruous scene this year: a wine-tasting hosted by Basalt-based Miller Farms Exports.
About 40 Cuban officials sipped merlot, cabernet and white wines while munching on Wisconsin cheese, recalled Miller Farms President Jack Miller.
Miller Farms, which ships a variety of goods to Cuba, was hoping to promote wine and cheese in a country where ham-and- cheese sandwiches and rum are common bar fare.
Miller is ahead of the curve when it comes to pitching products to Cuba. Some businesses and government officials in Colorado are intrigued by the possibility of boosting exports to Cuba and may try to enlist Gov. Bill Ritter to join a trade delegation to the country. The pitch could occur after the November elections, given the political sensitivity of such a trip.
"In the '60s, I wanted to starve Castro out," said Jim Reis, president of WorldTradeCenter Denver, who expects to be involved in the trade effort. "Now I said, 'Let's kill his policies with kindness.' "
It's premature to discuss a trade mission, said Pam Reichert, international trade director in the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, a state agency. But she said that this summer her office will begin researching Colorado's trade potential with Cuba.
"Cuba's always out there (as an option)," she added, "because there are other states that have gone there."
Tom Lipetzky, markets-division director for the Colorado Department of Agriculture, said his office is "doing our homework" and does not have a timeline for making any pitch to the governor. But he said there's a sense that for Colorado, Cuba "is not a closed door."
"There are some products from Colorado that do line up with what Cuba is importing," he said.
Despite Cuba's socialist government and militant face-off with America, the two countries do conduct some business. In 2007, the U.S. sent $447 million worth of goods to Cuba, mostly agricultural, according to figures from WorldTradeCenter Denver and WISER, the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research. That's up from $347.7 million the year before.
Colorado exports to Cuba have officially been at zero from 2005 to 2007. But items are sometimes tracked by their port of exit, so a Colorado product shipped from Los Angeles may be credited to California.
The state that consistently funnels the most to Cuba is Louisiana - $173 million worth of goods last year, though the figure includes items from other states that are shipped through its ports. Second was Texas, with $57.7 million.
A key reason Colorado has little or no Cuban exports, Reis said, is that elected officials have not undertaken a trade mission. The Cuban government gives preference to businesses in states where the political establishment supports trade.
Reis believes that if Colorado does strengthen its business ties to Cuba, agricultural and maybe some medical exports from the state could reach $5 million to $10 million in two to five years. That compares with about $1.4 billion in state agricultural exports worldwide last year.
Miller Farms has been capturing some of the Cuban market, albeit not with Colorado products, for roughly seven years. About five years ago, it shipped instant ramen noodles from southern California. Each packet sold for about 50 cents.
Last year the company had a Mississippi catfish fry at a Havana restaurant, but sales never took off, in large part because Cubans were starting their own fish farm, Miller said.
The Miller Farms transactions have been varied but not easy. Miller notes that he cannot use American banks, and the Cubans have to pay upfront for the goods, which eliminates options such as buying on credit.
For the California wine-tasting, dates kept changing because the bottles were delayed at Cuban customs - a common occurrence, Miller said. And while he hasn't sold any wine yet, he says the Cubans were impressed with the quality. "They seemed to like the chardonnay."
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May 27, 2008
3:50 a.m.
Suggest removal
LOUIE writes:
Cosidering all of the "Beards" formidable enemies in America, throughout the decades, he has outlived them all. Oswald was passing out pro Castro literature, "Fairplay for Cuba" at the time he assasinated Kennedy. Several times Kennedy tried in vain to kill Castro, only to get a dirt nap from a traitorous American marine, with mob and governmental assistance. Hoover surely didn't like the Kennedy's, and America learned a lession: never leave a man as director of an institution as powerful as the F.B.I. for 5 decades. I believe Hoover was the most powerful American ever to sit in a federal position and literally rule unabated. Of all the possibilities of Mr. Kennedy's assasination, I believe Mr. Hoover was most instrumental in bringing the house down on the Kennedys.
May 27, 2008
3:59 a.m.
Suggest removal
LOUIE writes:
I sat in Raiford Prison with a man named Gerry Hemming who some believe was involved in the assasination. Wonder if we'll ever know the truth?
May 27, 2008
8:22 a.m.
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Jimminy writes:
So the Colorado business/government complex wants to suck up to the thugs who tried to start World War III.Great!
May 27, 2008
9:44 a.m.
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Ztliano writes:
Yey, I hope we get some Cuban imports too! I wish. And not just cigars. Smoking is bad for you.
May 27, 2008
11:30 a.m.
Suggest removal
widewest writes:
We sell food to every other Communist and / or Facist government in the world.I have been to Havana on trade missions, and know the needs of the Cuban people.Working with the previous Colorado political organization was a dead end.I thought Republicans promoted free trade, open business, and profits for all.NOT TRUE!
The Cold War ended about 20 years ago, and Cuba is not a threat to anyone.The Cuban people like Americans, and the government prefers to buy from the US. Send the Colorado delagation down to Havana this November for the trade show and be part of the real world.
Food is not a political weapon.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture knows who I am, maybe now they will be allowed to work with me.
May 27, 2008
11:32 a.m.
Suggest removal
roger44 writes:
Why is it if a country we don't like has weapons, they are aggressors, yet we have enough nukes to destroy the world three times over and we're not? Our policy has not done a thing to hurt Castro, only the little people, yet we're the good guys. Only in our own minds I think. It's time we tried to get along with the rest of the world, we haven't done much to improve relations, we could be getting a lot of trade with Cuba, heck, their sugar cane would make a lot of ethanol, and more efficiently, but no, us taxpayers have to subsidise it. 63 years ago, President Truman asked the congress for a health care plan, and we're telling the rest of the world what to do.....gotta be kidding me.
May 27, 2008
1:08 p.m.
Suggest removal
jackwoehr writes:
The proof that our policy vis-a-vis Cuba is wrong is that ... over the course of 59 years it has not accomplished anything whatsoever.
May 27, 2008
1:08 p.m.
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jackwoehr writes:
oops. 49 years!
May 27, 2008
4:43 p.m.
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mikeyg writes:
Just shows how anti-American the Democrats are. Dem Gov. Ritter appoints all of these communist sympathizers to head departments like the Department of Economic Development and now they want to confront and overturn our nation's foreign policy. Last I read about the US Constitution our relations with foreign government is a power set aside to federal government, not states. So because you leftist Che/Castro supporters and fellow travelers who occupy the Democratic party today don't agree with federal policy you want to states to disregard it to undermine it.
Look out America for if/when Obama sets our foriegn policy, watch him embrace Chavez, Castro, Ahmedenijab, Il, Morales et.al., every communist/socialist dictator on the planet he feels a kinship to and sells the United States out, nationalizes our health care, energy, banking and manufacturing industries and turns the blessing of America our parents gave us into something horribly unrecognizable, desperate and wanton to our children - all because Americans are having a temper tantrum over GWB. There's a lot more at stake, as "centrists" like Gov. Ritter demonstrate in encouraging trade with communist thugs like Castro. You gotta know that a full-fledged radical leftist like Obama will go even further.
May 28, 2008
2:43 p.m.
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widewest writes:
The US embargo is Castro's excuse for everything that goes wrong in Cuba.If we end the embargo they have no excuses, and the Cuban people will take care of the Castro brothers.
May 30, 2008
11:54 a.m.
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Change4Cuba writes:
It sounds very nice, poetic and "progre" to say that food shouldn't be a political weapon, especially when you are saying it from the safety of your colorful Colorado and protected by the rights crafted by America's founding fathers.
The reality of living under a communist dictatorship, my friends, is quite different.
Their biggest success has been, precisely, starving a whole nation for 50 years (and do not even start with the embargo lethany, because they do business with the whole rest of the world).
When your stomach is grueling, you don't think about freedom of speech, religions or civil liberties. Believe me. I've seen it up close and personal.
I do not want to see, under any circumstances, my taxpayer money being spent in tropical vacations for Colorado officials in castro's gulag.
Colorado businessmen want to do their (dirty) businesses with castro's inc? Fine with me. Go for your money, if federal laws allow you to do so. But do not try to sugar coat it. Do not come to tell me that you are going to kill his policies with kindness. That's pretty naive and stupid, not to say plainly insulting.
Insulting for Cubans like me, born and raised under that dictatorship, where I have seen with our own eyes how the food bought from the US is being sold only in the government-owned stores where you have to pay with dollars.
I was never given instant ramen noodles in the rationing card and really doubt that medical supplies will ended up in the hospitals for regular Cubans that are falling down (those that Michael Moore dutyfully forgot to include in Sicko).
Do you really wou want to do a service to justice along with pocketing some money?
Tell me that, between mojitos and suntans, you'll spare some minutes to ask about the political prisoners, the abuses against pacific dissidents, the scam of the free health care without doctors because they are being rented to foreign countries, why Cubans can not say what they think without ending up in jail, why so many Cubans were killed in front of the firing squads for the sole sin of thinking different from castro...
The reality of Cuba is quite different from the image castro sells with its effective PR machine. The other side of the aparheid is where you don't get paid in dollars by the sole employer (castro's inc) that sell the basic food staples in their own stores, in dollars, when the middle salary in Cuban pesos merely makes around $15.00.
Finally, one thing can be taken for granted: no hard earned monies from this Cuban American's pocket will ever be spent in anything even remotely associated with Miller farms.
And guys, you know the market rules: one discontent customer spreading the word would at least cost you another 10-15 clients.
June 9, 2008
1:03 p.m.
Suggest removal
artinezHD writes:
Mikeyg,
It is hard to believe there are still people out there that don't realize diplomacy and good will towards others is more fruitful than aggression and hatred. Open dialog is the only way to solve problems, those that create enemies do so only to turn the general publics attention away from the manipulative and self-serving interests of big business and their greed-full need to consume the natural resources of other countries in an exploitive and inhumane manner. There is no need for the U.S. to involve itself in sixty-nine world wide clandestine operations throughout the world, but for the greedy wants of big business.
If you don't watch out Blackwater will soon be handling internal security operations and then it WILL be too late. Over and out