Emmer: Drop the Cuba trade embargo
WASHINGTON — Rep. Tom Emmer is, for the second time in nine months, in the afterglow of a trip to Cuba.
The trip earlier this month with about a half-dozen other members of Congress has made the Delano Republican more passionate than ever about his quixotic quest to pass his bill to drop the U.S. trade embargo against the Communist-run island nation.
In an interview, Emmer discussed how he got involved in the Cuba debate and why he thinks opening trade with Cuba would help his district, the state and the country.
Question: How did you get started on the issue of Cuba?
Answer: I am part of the (House) Agriculture Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee, which caused me to look at issues primarily related to trade. I had an opportunity to visit Cuba in May. That actually had a major impact on me because that was when I knew — instead of just looking at trade partners that are across the Pacific or the Atlantic Ocean — we’ve got a potential trade partner that’s 90 miles off our Florida coast with a market of 11 million people. And it wasn’t just the economics. We call it an embargo; they call it a blockade. So just using their term, if you go to Cuba what you will hear and what you will observe is that the blockade is the excuse for everything that doesn’t work in government. So, if you don’t have potatoes today it’s because of the blockade. If you don’t have nails for your hammer it’s because of the blockade. So, we have to remove the excuse. When I started to look at what’s actually happening on the ground in Cuba ... I realized that the policy was flawed. The policy was supposed to be about undermining the (Fidel) Castro regime, the Communist regime. It’s lasted 55 years. I think the policy-makers in America underestimated a charismatic leader who was able to use the blockade and say, 'This is why you are suffering.'
Q: Were you surprised by your change in outlook?
A: Surprised is probably the wrong word for it. I‘d never been to Cuba. So, it was all about the experience, about actually seeing what a guy from Minnesota doesn’t experience through whatever media source you are getting. Here’s the observation that was stunning: I saw two 20-something-year-old Cubans wearing American flag T-shirts. We saw a rickshaw with an American flag hanging down the back of it.
We met with the leaders of the (government-owned communications) company. They told us from March of 2014 to now they have sold a million cell phones to Cubans. And the demographic? Thirty-five to 40-years-old and younger. That’s one staggering fact. The other one is the deputy foreign minister told us the government now controls 70 percent of the economy. The private entrepreneurs, the private businesses now account for about 30 percent of the economy. I’ve heard from other sources that it’s probably even closer to 40 percent on the private side and by some estimates there might be as many as 600,000 privately owned businesses. What you see is this: The population that’s 50-years-old or older, all they’ve ever known is communist Cuba and they are a little resistant. They’re scared. Forty-years-old and younger, they already know what’s going on in America and they aspire to it, they want it.
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Q: Why is this beneficial to your district and to your state?
A: The No. 1 and No. 2 drivers of our private economy in Minnesota are agriculture and manufacturing. It’s opening up a new market. We’ve got a market 90 miles off our Florida coast with 11 million people that are hungry for what we produce, are hungry for what we have to offer. Just as important, it’s the security of our country, the security of our nation. We’ve got to start thinking much bigger than our southern border. We have got to start thinking about the Western Hemisphere. What are we doing to make sure we have the relationships we need in the Western Hemisphere?.
Q: What is the status of your legislation?
A: We’ve got 11 or 12 (co-sponsors) at this point, the majority of which are Republican. The polls show more than 70 percent of Americans believe it is time to change our policy to Cuba. Sixty percent of Republicans favor normalizing.
And yet you’ve had this small group in Washington, D.C., that has been controlling the issue because nobody, nobody on the Republican side of the aisle has been willing to push it with the intensity that we are trying to accomplish.
We’ve decided this is something we’re absolutely going to push in this Congress. The goal is to keep adding Republicans. I can tell you privately I’ve already got a much larger number that’s told me ‘Hey, if it ever gets to the (House) floor I’m with you.' Well, here’s the problem: if you’re not public I can’t get the bill to the floor. I’m just tired of Republicans saying 'no' and resisting change for no good reason — the refusal to recognize that the world is moving. I think it’s time for Republicans to get on the front of this and be not only the active partner in seeing us change the policy toward Cuba but actually be an active and aggressive participant in trying to restore our relationship with the Cuban people.