Castro’s ‘cowboy friend’ hopes mission boosts sales

BOISE – Idaho governors have led high-profile trade missions to the state’s top overseas trading partners in the past decade, helping push big increases in Idaho exports to Asia, Canada and Mexico.

But Gov. Butch Otter will land in Havana today for his first trade mission – to Cuba, which had no Idaho imports in recent years, except for a single shipment of frozen potatoes in 2004.

In fact, U.S. trade embargo restrictions prevent Idaho companies from shipping anything to Cuba other than agricultural, medical or wood products, according to the governor’s office.

Otter’s goal? “To try to sell as many groceries as he can – that’s what he has said from the beginning,” said the governor’s spokesman, Jon Hanian. “He wants to open up what he sees as potentially, down the road, a lucrative market for Idaho products. Right now we’re limited in what we can sell … so we’re talking everything from lentils to generic drugs and bandages.”

Otter doesn’t even know whom he’ll meet with on the four-day trade mission – he’ll find that out this morning when he arrives and receives an itinerary. The Cuban government, which arranged for the 35-member Idaho delegation to stay at the five-star Hotel Nacional in Havana, will decide that.

“We’re their guests, and they’re going to take us around to the various places that could mean business for some of the folks on board,” Hanian said.

Otter hopes to meet with ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom he’s met before on his three previous visits to the island country as an Idaho congressman.

“There’s no question he’s a communist, he’s a tyrant,” Otter told reporters last month. “He’s not very respectful of free speech. He knows how I feel about that part of his philosophy, and he knows that I’m a capitalist.”

Yet Otter said he and Castro “struck a respectful friendship.”

Hanian said Otter tells a story about how Castro likes “the fact that he’s a cowboy. So he kinda calls him ‘my cowboy friend.’ “

Idaho’s governors have led nine trade missions since 1999: three to Asia, four to Mexico and two to Canada.

Idaho exports to Asia have since skyrocketed, with seven Asian countries now making the list of the state’s top 10 trading partners and accounting for 64 percent of all Idaho goods shipped overseas.

The vast majority of those exports to Asia – more than 88 percent in 2006 – were high-tech items, including computer chips.

Idaho exports to Canada have nearly doubled, from $288 million a year in 1999 to $561 million in 2006. Metal ores, fertilizer, computer chips and vehicles lead the way.

Exports to Mexico have soared from $53 million in 1998 to $128 million in 2006, according to the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor.

So why did Otter pick Cuba for his first trade mission?

“He’s been there before,” Hanian said. “This is a country that’s 90 miles away from U.S. soil, and while it may be many, many more miles away from Idaho soil, the governor doesn’t think that just because it’s removed from this state that we shouldn’t be aggressive at pushing more markets for Idaho goods. He thinks that in the future this country could be a lucrative market for Idaho products.”

Otter also offered a philosophical reason for visiting the communist island nation: “I think as long as you keep a conversation going, then you’re not going to start shooting, and … that’s about all we can do,” he said.

Traveling with Otter and first lady Lori Otter are representatives of Idaho’s agriculture industry; the vice president of medical education for Idaho State University; Frank VanderSloot, president of Melaleuca Inc., an eastern Idaho manufacturer of cleaning and personal products; and a couple of University of Idaho and BYU-Idaho officials. State Agriculture Director Celia Gould and her husband, former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, who is representing AB Foods, also are on the trip.

The trade mission is costing more than $85,000, but non-state employees on the trip are paying their own way, which covers nearly three-quarters of the total. Ten state employees are traveling to Cuba, including Otter. The state did pay for some gifts for the governor to present to Cuban officials, including a coffee table book, “The Idaho Cowboy.”

Idaho is not unique in looking to Cuba for trade. Nebraska’s governor, Dave Heineman, took a farm delegation to Cuba last month. But Nebraska has been exporting up to $30 million a year in agricultural products to Cuba since 2005.

Congress permitted cash purchases of U.S. food and agricultural products by Cuba in 2000. Since then, the United States has become the top supplier of food and agricultural products to the nation.

U.S. foreign trade statistics show Idaho had no exports to Cuba, with the exception of $22,616 in potatoes in 2004. But state Commerce spokesman Bob Fick said Idaho companies could have sent products there through other states.

Otter said Cuba has had some successes, including a literacy rate of 98 percent.

“Their three great failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner, and that’s where we come in,” he said.