Byron Dorgan: “I ask them to address, for example, farmers in America, and explain to them why the Canadian farmers will sell to Cuba…”

“I ask them to address, for example, farmers in America, and explain to them why the Canadian farmers will sell to Cuba, why the European farmers will sell to Cuba, why the Venezuelan farmers will sell to Cuba, but American farmers who see their prices collapse are told: No, these markets, including Cuba, are off limits to you; we have sanctions. We want to penalize those governments, and included in those penalties is a desire to say we will not allow food and medicine to move to those countries. I hasten to say I have no difficulty at all and fully support the proposition that our country should impose economic sanctions on countries that behave outside the international norm, but those sanctions should never, in my judgment, include food and medicine. That is, in my judgment, an immoral policy. The proposition offered by the Senator from Connecticut today is just the first modest step in beginning a national discussion about whether 40 years of failure with the current embargo ought to be continued, or whether there ought to be some new evaluation of new strategies dealing with Cuba.”