Port of Palm Beach unaffected by Cuba pullback
No trade conducted with island nation from Riviera Beach.
The Port of Palm Beach in Riviera Beach is less than 300 miles from Cuba, but the businesses at the port don’t conduct trade with Cuba.
President Donald Trump’s pullback of President Barack Obama’s loosening of relations with Cuba is not expected to impact the port.
“Today’s announcement from President Trump does not have any impact on the Port of Palm Beach. No progress has been made since January’s Cuban delegation visit in generating trade or business with Cuba. Unlike other ports, we do not have cruise ships departing from our port and calling on Cuba, so our cruise business is not impacted, spokeswoman Aidy Alonzo said Friday.
In January, the port hosted a delegation of seven top Cuba port officials with plans to sign what would have been an historical memorandum of understanding between the National Port Administration of Cuba and the port.
After Gov. Rick Scott said he would withhold state money from any port that signed an agreement with Cuba, port officials decided not to sign the memorandum.
However, Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Manuel Almira said the friendship between the Cuban delegation and port officials here was sealed. Almira, who was born in Cuba, had pursued the agreement for six years. He left on a trip to Cuba the next week.
Ana Teresa Igarza, general director of the special development zone at Port Mariel, said during the January visit that both sides were ready and willing to work together.
While businesses at the Port of Palm Beach do not trade directly with Cuba, Crowley Maritime Corp. transports goods from Port Everglades in Broward County to Cuba, and has for 16 years.
In the late 1950s, the port of Palm Beach conducted more trade with Cuba than any other port in the world. Starting in 1946, the West Indian Fruit and Steamship Co. transported everything from cars to fertilizer, households goods and food to Cuba from the port.
Back then, Cuba sent commodities such as sugar, tomatoes, pineapples and, of course, rum back on the same ships.
The trade ended in August 1961 after the U.S. imposed embargo on all shipments to Cuba, where the then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro was nationalizing foreign properties and pursuing a communistic economic model.
The end of trade with Cuba, which had been a major supplier of sugar to the U.S., resulted in a huge increase in sugar production in Florida. Cuba and Florida have similar subtropical climates and both produce sugar cane, fruit and winter vegetables.
Florida agriculture has been opposed to any reopening of trade with the island nation, and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has stated invasive pests and diseases could come in from Cuba.
Palm Beach County agriculture, however, wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for the Cuban influence.
Experienced people in Cuba’s sugar industry, such as the Fanjul family of Palm Beach, brought their expertise to Palm Beach County. U.S. Sugar Corp., founded in 1931 in Clewiston, expanded. The Belle Glade-based Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida began in 1960, and by 1962, the Fanjuls had incorporated Florida Crystals Corp., headquartered in West Palm Beach.