Alabama on Cuba: Tear Down this Embargo

Richard Fausset
Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2009

The barges bound for Cuba already glide down the Mobile River from time to time, past James K. Lyons' office and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

These days, Lyons, the director of the Alabama State Port Authority, dreams of when the Cuban trade embargo will be fully dismantled. That would mean more barges loaded with even more goods from Alabama.

For Mobile, the state's graceful colonial port of call, it would also mean the revival of a commercial relationship with Havana that is older than the United States.

"They are one of our closest neighbors, and a historical trading partner, and we've drifted too far apart," Lyons said here recently, in his office overlooking the busy port of Mobile. "Where's the cheapest and best place for them to buy? It's here..."

"...These people are seeing Cuba as the last economic frontier, especially at a time when markets are shrinking or stagnant," said Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy for the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. "It's going to make for a much more favorable climate for lifting the embargo."

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