Alabama came to Tampa on Thursday to sign an agreement with Cuba.
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The sea port in Mobile and the sea port near Havana have pledged to do business with one another in the future — the kind of deal that three ports in Florida had worked toward until Gov. Rick Scott scuttled them last week by threatening to pull their funding.
"This feels like Cuba’s way of saying if Florida doesn’t want our business, Alabama does," said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York. "And they are coming onto your turf to do it."
The occasion Thursday was an international conference called "Planning for Shifting Trade," sponsored by the American Association of Port Authorities at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina.
Some U.S. exports to Cuba already are allowed as exceptions to the trade embargo imposed more than 50 years ago after the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro embraced communism. Under a law passed in 2000, they include agricultural commodities and food products.
Mobile ranks fifth among U.S. ports in exports to Cuba, Kavulich said.
Nothing is shipped to Cuba out of Tampa today.
Port Tampa Bay, Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades and Port of Palm Beach had planned to sign memorandums of understanding similar to Mobile’s during visits to their cities now underway by a delegation from Cuba.
Scott first issued his funding threats in tweets last week, decrying Cuba’s "brutal dictator," then followed up in the 2017 budget he submitted this week with a provision denying state money for port infrastructure projects that result in the expansion of trade with Cuba.
A memorandum to do business with Cuba in the future signals intent, but may have limited practical impact, Kavulich said. Without one, Port Everglades was already second in maritime facilities used to ship goods to Cuba in 2016. Norfolk, Va., was No. 1 and has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Cuba.
Ultimately, Kavulich said, considering Tampa’s proximity to Cuba and its historic ties with the island nation, whenever Port Tampa Bay decides and is allowed get into the Cuba business, "it likely can."
Contact Paul Guzzo at pguzzo@tampabay.com. Follow @PGuzzoTimes.
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