Pa. seeks to lift U.S. embargo on Cuban rum
But Congress shows no eagerness to scrap the ban.
Pennsylvania’s Cuban rum run got its start in a chance meeting last fall in the parking lot in front of the state Capitol.
“‘You know, we have rum,’ ” a visiting Cuban government liaison told state Sen. Chuck McIlhinney, who was walking to his car when he was introduced to her as the senator whose committee oversees how alcohol is sold in Pennsylvania. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we should buy some.’ ”
A few months later, the agency that controls Pennsylvania’s 600-plus stateowned wine and liquor stores is working to lift the United States’ 55-year-old embargo on Cuban rum, one of the island nation’s best-known products.
A purchase of Cuban rum by the sixth-most populous state would be, by all accounts, the biggest shipment of Cuban rum to the U.S. since John F. Kennedy was president, and could pave the way for the nation’s private spirits wholesalers to follow suit.
The embargo is on virtually all imports from and exports to Cuba, including rum. If Pennsylvania is successful, it would be the first import of a product produced entirely by the Communist state. The administration of former President Barack Obama allowed imports of charcoal produced by worker-owned cooperatives.
In recent days, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board submitted the initial paperwork to begin the application process, an agency spokeswoman said, and is now working to provide additional documentation required by the federal government. There’s reason for hope. The federal government office that enforces the Cuban embargo has begun granting licenses to allow limited exchanges of goods and services under regulations written by the Obama administration that reflect his 2014 move to restore diplomatic relations between the two nations.
There is also reason for pessimism.
Before he assumed the presidency on Jan. 20, Donald Trump criticized the detente between the U.S. and Cuba, tweeting that he might “terminate” it. New federal regulations on Cuba are expected, and Congress shows no eagerness to scrap the embargo.
“We are, as we all know, in a transitional moment,” said Pedro Freyre, a Miami-based lawyer who leads the international law practice Akerman LLP. “The new administration has sent mixed signals on Cuba . ... Nobody really knows where this will end.”
For Cuba, which ships rum to more than 120 countries, breaking the rum embargo would undoubtedly be an economic boon. The United States is the world’s biggest rum consumer.
For Pennsylvania? A feather in its cap and more money for a state-controlled liquor system.