Majority of Cubans want car parts for a 55 Chevy.
Despite the Obama administration’s easing of some restrictions on travel and commerce with Cuba, don’t expect Starbucks to soon dot every Havana street corner or Marriott to start building a beachfront hotel.
The U.S. trade embargo imposed in the 1960s, and subsequent further restrictions on commerce with Cuba, remain in effect and can be lifted only by Congress. For the time being, companies from Canada, Brazil, Spain, Mexico and elsewhere can breathe easy. They won’t be facing well-financed U.S. competitors, either in trade or investment on the island.
Most trade with, and investment in, Cuba remains off limits. That’s because the openings announced Friday restrict commercial activities to individual Cubans without ties to government and private companies. And Cuba remains an almost entirely state-run economy.
The relaxed rules “push the ball forward,” said Paul Johnson, president of Chicago Foods International and vice chairman of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, which hopes to roll back the embargo. “But it’s going to take an act of Congress to do anything truly impactful. There’s a lot that can’t be done yet.”
For example, while Caterpillar or its suppliers may find it easier to send tractors or replacement parts to Cuba, U.S. cattlemen and poultry producers still can’t supply Cuban-owned hotel chains and resorts that are chock full of rich European vacationers.[…]
What little Cuba does export is unlikely to reach U.S. shores anytime soon, he added.
“From rum and cigars to sugar and nickel, none of that will happen,” Claver-Carone said confidently.
How fast that changes depends more on the Cuban government than it does on the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers are reluctant to scrap the trade embargo without signs that Cuban leader Raul Castro is willing to cede political space to opponents and reduce the state’s role in the economy.