Emmer: Cuba trip will boost effort to end embargo

Traveling with President Barack Obama this week on his historic visit to Cuba, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Monday that they're hopeful the visit will help their efforts to lift the U.S. embargo of the island nation.

On a conference call with reporters Monday shortly before attending a state dinner in Havana, Emmer and Klobuchar said there are already signs that the thawing of relations between the two countries is having a positive effect.

Along with U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, the two Minnesotans are part of larger group traveling with the president on his two-day trip. It's the first time a sitting U.S. president has traveled to the island 90 miles off the coast of Florida since Calvin Coolidge made the journey 88 years ago.

Klobuchar called Obama's meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday "incredibly important." She and Emmer see the lifting of the embargo as an economic opportunity for Minnesota agriculture and other businesses that want to trade there.

About 80 percent of food on the island nation of 11 million people is imported, Klobuchar said. While 50 percent used to be American food, that number has fallen to 10 percent, the Democratic senator said.

Other countries are seeing a market in Cuba, and increasingly European countries are exporting food there because they're not bound by the embargo, she said. Dairy, soybeans and poultry — all produced in Minnesota — are agricultural sectors that could benefit, Klobuchar said.

"There are some major markets for us to build on what is already a $20 million market out of Minnesota," she said. "Hopefully... we could double or triple that if the embargo is lifted."

It's Emmer's third visit to Cuba is less than a year. The welcome by the Cuban people for the American delegation was incredible, the Sixth District Republican said. People were lining the streets in the rain to watch the buses pass by, giving the thumbs-up sign and waving Cuban and sometimes American flags.

"Each time I've come, the reception of not only the Cuban people, but the Cuban government has changed dramatically," Emmer said.

While much of the focus has been on the economic opportunity Cuba offers, Emmer said normalizing relations also will help open up the country, which has a lengthy history of human rights abuses. He argues that the engagement that the president's visit brings — along with the Tampa Bay Rays playing the national baseball team of Cuba and a concert by the Rolling Stones — helps to bring sunlight to a country that's been isolated for too long.

"You've opened up an island that was up until now, closed up until now to Americans," Emmer said. "It's about engagement. It's about bringing things into the sunlight so you can see what's actually going on in Cuba and the changes. It's about the human rights changes as well."

Emmer: Drop the Cuba trade embargo

Klobuchar is optimistic that the bill to lift the embargo will get a vote in the Senate later this year, probably after the election.

Emmer, the House champion, acknowledged that Republican opposition makes its passage "a Hail Mary pass," but said he's still hopeful it will get a vote. It will take direct pressure from the chiefs of companies that want to do business in Cuba to change their minds, he said.

"I can only do so much," he said.

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