S.C. Could Benefit from Business with Cuba

In July 2003, a South Carolina shipping company’s barge made history as the first vessel under a U.S. flag to carry cargo to Cuba in more than 42 years. A year later, a South Carolina trade delegation had a three-hour meeting with Fidel Castro that resulted in a $10 million export deal to sell the state’s goods to the island. 

“The day your barge came to Cuba, the news traveled all over the world,” Castro told Charleston trade entrepreneur Jack Maybank Sr., whose company sent the vessel, at the time. 

Maybank saw Cuba as the “development opportunity of the century,” with an educated population of 11 million that was hungry for U.S. commodities – a promising environment for business partnerships with South Carolina and other states. 

THE MOST IMPORTANT AND ADVANTAGE IN TRADE SOUTH CAROLINA BRINGS IS ITS PEOPLE. WE ARE VERY MUCH LIKE THE CUBANS IN CUBA TODAY. YOU FIRST BUILD A FRIENDSHIP, WHICH THEN BRINGS TRUST, WHICH THEN BRINGS BUSINESS, AND THAT IS THE WAY CUBANS AND SOUTH CAROLINIANS ARE VERY UNIQUE. Jack Maybank Jr., whose late father shipped cargo to Cuba

Thirteen years later, South Carolina should be in a great position to profit from trade with the island nation. It has both the ports and the exports – poultry, soybeans and car parts – that are coveted on the island. It also has a geographic advantage to ship to Cuba – close but without the politics of doing business with the former Cold War rival that the Cuban-American-heavy communities in South Florida have. 

Despite the Palmetto State’s ground-breaking early ventures, however, the continuing U.S. trade embargo has made it difficult to capitalize on that advantage. While U.S. companies have been able to sell food to Cuba since 2000, the restrictions on extending credit and government export assistance give businesses in other countries the upper hand. The embargo can’t be lifted without congressional action, which is unlikely to happen in an election year.

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