Otter has much practice visiting island nations

BOISE — When Gov. Butch Otter and his 35-member entourage make landfall in Cuba today for a four-day trade mission, he can draw on his past experience in island nations.

In 1981, Otter had a personal audience with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in his Manila presidential palace over a proposed $50 million french fry processing plant for agribusiness tycoon J.R. Simplot, Otter’s employer at the time. Afterward, an upbeat Otter said Marcos was even eyeing a trip to Idaho.

Marcos never made it to Idaho; he was run out of the Philippines in 1986 after demonstrations.

Still, in Otter’s first official out-of-country trip as chief executive, he’s continuing what’s almost an avocation: traveling to high-profile yet out-of-the-way locales with spotty political pedigrees in search of new markets for Idaho products.

In addition to his Philippine fling 25 years ago, Otter has already been to Cuba three times, as a Republican U.S. House member on lobbyist-funded trips.

Back in 1981, Otter, as head of Simplot International, the french fry maker’s global development division, said Marcos was “overwhelmingly receptive” to lifting import restrictions on agricultural seeds and supplies.

A quarter-century later, Otter’s cordiality extends to Castro, whom the U.S. says jails political dissidents.

This March 13, Otter told reporters he had a “respectful” relationship with Castro; the U.S. State Department is trying to oust him from power with an embargo (it doesn’t include food) and travel restrictions on U.S. residents.

“The thing that irritates me the most about the State Department’s policy toward Cuba is that it’s not a policy toward Cuba,” Otter said at an Idaho Press Club-sponsored event. “You’re a free American, you should be able to travel anywhere you want, whenever you want.”

Back in 2004, Craig and Otter signed a potential $10 million nonbinding deal with Cuba for Idaho agricultural products, but the state has made only one minor sale of potatoes.

Cuba is trying to expand its oil and natural gas, and it’s experimenting with turning some of its sugar into ethanol. When its natural resources take off, Otter says, so will demand.

Back in 1981, Otter’s jaunt to the Philippines didn’t yield hoped-for results.

The $50 million Simplot processing plant never got built, and his plans to make the Philippines a big market for Idaho irrigation equipment, harvest machinery, and farm chemicals also sputtered.

He’s hoping Cuba, a gambling haven in the 1950s before Castro’s revolution, will be a better bet.