06/28/05  No to donut machine for Cuba

06/28/05 No to donut machine for Cuba

Farm and Ranch June 28, 2005 The Bush Administration's opposition to Fidel Castro is well known. But U.S. Wheat Associates thinks the administration's policy has taken a turn to the absurd in rejecting a request to donate a donut making machine to Cuba. Alan Tracy, president of U.S. Wheat Associates, explains. Tracy: "We had thought for some time it would be interesting to introduce a new product to the Cuban people. They don't normally have donuts. It is just not something that has been on their menu. We thought it would be fund and interesting product that in the long run would of course help expand the market for U.S. wheat. One of the ways we proposed to do that was to donate a small commercial scale donut making machine to a school in Havana. Of course everything including the school is associated with the government and so the result was that the Treasury Department said that would make money for the government so they just turned us down." Tracy says it is hard to imagine how giving Cuban children their first taste of a donut is a threat to the U.S. Tracy: "I personally don't think that Cuba is much of a theat to the U.S. anyway. Afterall we are meeting in the White House with the head of Viet Nam. That's a Communist country that we used to have a war with. I wish our policy with Cuba was a little more enlightened." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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