It is being claimed that the bill pending in Congress to end Cuba travel restrictions, H.R. 4645, gives credit to the Cuban government to buy American farm products, or opens the door for such credits.
That is simply false. I have never even heard of an attempt to add such a provision to this bill.
What the bill actually does with regard to U.S. exports of agricultural products is as follows.
First, it restores a pre-2004 definition of the “cash in advance” requirement, so that Cuba’s payment has to arrive before goods are transferred in a Cuban port, as opposed to before the goods leave a U.S. port. Not an earth-shaking provision, and “cash in advance” obviously means “no credit.”
Second, it allows Cuba to send its payments by direct wire transfer to U.S. banks, ending the requirement that the payments go through third countries. That’s Cuba’s money coming to the United States, not the other way around, and again, this has nothing to do with providing loans to Cuba, public or private.
As if they care, Phil. From the very beginning the vociferations have been about disqualifying and tarnishing the supporters of the bill, from naive to mercenaries. The detractors will say the wildest things, with no substantiation or proof. Not much different than what the Cuban government does.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good... but we'll see how it works with a million american tourist per year, all of them with pockets full of... credit cards; opening the door for a daisy chain-like string of endless concessions -from the american end of the deal, of course.
ReplyDeleteThen sooner than later american credits will start flowing to the island-prison, supporting Castro's tropical gulag. Nice !!!