WASHINGTON A long-debated easing in the U.S.
embargo on Cuba to allow food and medicine sales could be passed by Congress and sent to President Bill Clinton before week's end if all goes well.
It could mark a historic change in four decades of estranged relations between the nations. U.S. economic sanctions were imposed in 1962 in hopes of isolating Cuba after it accepted aid from the Soviet Union.
With the end of the Cold War, opinion has shifted toward revision of the embargo. Farm and business groups have argued for three years for permission to sell food and medicine to the island 90 miles (140km) from Florida.
The House of Representatives could vote as early as Wednesday on the proposal as part of a $75 billion agriculture funding bill, leaders said.
Senators were alerted they might vote on the measure in the next day or two as well. It must be signed by Clinton to become law.
White House spokesman Jake Siewert said on Tuesday the administration had not taken a position on the bill yet. Besides the Cuba provision, the bill would allow prescription drug imports, also an election-year lightning rod.
Under the Republican-written plan, food and medicine would be exempt from unilateral U.S. embargoes. Cuba would be the major beneficiary but it also would affect Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea, where sales are allowed case by case.
However, public and private U.S. financing of food sales would be barred and U.S. rules that generally ban travel to the island would be written into law.
Washington State Republican George Nethercutt, the leading House advocate of the food and medicine exemption, said it was common-sense that food and medicine should not be foreign policy tools.
"I hope the president will sign it," Nethercutt said.
The legislation was not as sweeping as farm-state lawmakers initially hoped. House Republican leaders required them to compromise with Floridians critical of Cuban President Fidel Castro. The result was the ban on direct U.S. bank financing and codification of the travel rules.
"Everybody's screaming. We're getting hit from the left and we're getting hit from the right," said a Nethercutt ally, Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson.
Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Fernandez told a visiting U.S.
farm delegation on Monday that trade could not occur unless two-way sales were possible. Nethercutt said he regarded the comments as a last-minute effort to improve the bill.
"I'm as confident as can be there will be trade," Nethercutt said during an interview. If Havana wants better terms, it should "start trading and improve their system a bit.
" (Reuter)