Bill Expected on Ending All Food, Medicine Sanctions

October 20, 1999

A group of senators is ready to introduce a bill that would exempt food and medicine from all current and future U.S. economic sanctions. One major farm organization says enactment significantly would improve economic conditions in agriculture.

"While it is important to maintain pressure on totalitarian countries, we cannot turn out backs on the basic humanitarian needs of the citizens," says Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), one of the main sponsors of the bill. "Food and medicine should not be used as a foreign policy weapon."

The bill originally was part of the fiscal 2000 agriculture appropriations bill after the Senate approved it as an amendment. But it was removed in the Senate-House conference negotiations. The Senate leadership, however, has agreed to bring it back up for action.

"Embargoes of food and medicine accomplish absolutely nothing," says Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-NC), another sponsor. "Neither Fidel Castro nor Muammar Quaddafi ever missed a meal because of a U.S. trade embargo. The only people hurt by food and medicine embargoes are poor people in those countries. It's time to put U.S. food embargoes in the dust bin of history. They don't work, and they hurt our own farmers."

American Farm Bureau Federation President Dean Kleckner says the bill is a humanitarian measure that will go a long way toward improving the nation's slumping farm sector. "Denial of food and medicine to needy people, not matter the political leanings of their nation's leaders, is morally reprehensible," he says. "Trade sanctions are counterproductive, detrimental to the domestic farm economy and often miss their intended foreign policy mark."

The bill lifts all food and medicine embargoes now in place. The President would need congressional approval to reimpose or establish any embargoes on food and medicine except in the case of declared war.

Roberts says unilateral U.S. sanctions have shut U.S. wheat farmers out of an estimated 10% of the world wheat market. Lifting sanctions on food would mean U.S. wheat farmers could export an additional 4.1 million tons of wheat this year, valued at almost $500 million, he adds.

REUTERS reports the Senate may vote next week on exempting food and medicine from unilateral trade embargoes, including the sanctions against Cuba. Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) says Senate leaders have agreed to seek a vote. "I expect it to be shortly," he added. Meanwhile, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) told a luncheon audience that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) will allow more debate on sanctions this fall, and suggested a reform bill approved by his committee could be the vehicle.