A Waiver for Cuba

The Western Hemisphere's wall of isolation around Fidel Castro's Cuba is beginning to crumble. At a meeting in Washington of Foreign Ministers from nations of the Organization of American States, the U.S. State Department announced that the Argentine subsidiaries of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler may now legally export some $80 million worth of autos and trucks to Cuba.

That was a notable diplomatic victory for the Peron government. For months Argentina has been pressuring Washington to waive its economic blockade of Cuba and allow some 42,000 vehicles, made in Argentina by American subsidiaries, to be shipped to the Castro government. At issue for the Argentines was not only the commercial value of the exports but also the question of sovereignty: the Buenos Aires government understandably did not like to have the U.S. controlling any aspect of its foreign-trade policy. The Peron government even threatened to expropriate the companies if the export license was not granted. Fearful of that possibility, the three parent companies in Detroit also pressed Washington to meet Argentina's request.

The waiver marked only the twelfth time that the U.S. has relaxed the Cuba trade boycott since it was imposed by the OAS in 1964. "The excellent relations between us and the Argentine government are very important to us," explained a State Department spokesman just before the decision was announced, "and we do not want to do anything that would affect those ties."

Officials at State insisted that the waiver in no way represented a "change of policy" toward Cuba. Yet it was clear that Washington's move would contribute greatly to ending Cuba's ten-year isolation from most of the Western Hemisphere. At the urging of Mexico, Argentina and Peru, the Foreign Ministers in Washington last week reached a "consensus" that Cuba should be invited to their gathering next March in Buenos Aires. Several countries, including Chile, opposed the invitation, but even such strongly anti-Communist representatives as Brazil's Foreign Minister Antonio Azeredo da Silveira voiced no objection. Mexico's Foreign Minister Emilio O. Rabasa announced that Castro has already agreed in principle to such a meeting.

Though the Nixon Administration is reluctant to readmit Cuba to formal hemispheric relations, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not oppose the Foreign Ministers' decision. With or without U.S. approval, many hemisphere nations are trying to normalize their relations with Cuba; seven Latin countries now have relations with it. A budding trade, worth $10 million last year, has grown up between the Communist island and its Latin neighbors.

Having made some concessions, the Nixon Administration at least gained time; it will be almost eleven months before the issue of relations with Castro comes up again. Politically, this is important to the White House: it wants to do nothing to endanger the support of anti-Cuban Southern conservatives in the expected Watergate showdown in Congress.

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