Sweet Slavery

Who spreads the misconceptions about the U.S. in Latin America was never better demonstrated than in Cuba last week.

Before a group of Havana University students--and a countrywide TV audience--Major Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, the scraggly-bearded president of Cuba's National Bank and the top Red in the Castro government, explained that Cuba's 3,000,000-ton sugar quota on the high-priced U.S. market (5-c- per lb. v. 3-c- on the world market) was not a good deal at all. Instead, said Che, it was a "deceitful" Yankee device designed to "enslave" Cuba by keeping it a one-crop agricultural country. "The purpose is to preclude the industrial development of this country."

The U.S. State Department's reply was swift and to the point. If the preferential quota is so onerous, then give it up. The State Department reminded Cuba that her sugar growers "have the same status as U.S. producers." By selling to the U.S. instead of on the world market, Cuba last year got, in effect, a subsidy of "more than $150 million." In addition, a preferential tariff, 20% lower for Cuba than for sugar from other countries, gave Cuban exporters another bonus of almost $8,000,000. Said State: "It would be logical to conclude from Major Guevara's remarks that he considers that such 'enslavement' would end were we to abandon our preferential treatment as regards Cuban sugar and pay the lower world market price."

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