Roundup: Tractor maker marks return of U.S. investment to Cuba amid trade embargo

Half a century since the U.S.-led trade embargo imposed against Cuba, a small U.S. tractor maker is preparing to become the first U.S.-owned company to operate in Cuba.

Alabama-based CleBer LLC recently received government approval to open a plant in the Caribbean island to manufacture small tractors for local farmers.

An article Wednesday in state daily Granma put it this way: "The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), one of the entities which tightly controls U.S. trade with Cuba, awarded the company an unprecedented license to erect a manufacturing plant in the country, to produce up to 1,000 small-sized tractors annually."

This is unprecedented given that the embargo is designed to penalize U.S. and third-country companies from doing business with Cuba to strangle its economy and weaken its government.

However, contradictions abound in today's Cuba-U.S. ties, as the two countries try to forge a new type of relationship marked by greater cooperation.

Also on Wednesday, Cuban and U.S. trade delegations met in Washington to discuss how the changes in bilateral ties impact commercial exchange.

In the meantime, CleBer is poised to blaze a trail for others seeking to do business with Cuba.

The company was founded last year by two long-time business partners, Saul Berenthal, who according to Granma is of Cuban origin, and Horace Clemmons.

During the Havana International Trade Fair (Fihav) in November 2015, when Cuban authorities opened the doors to U.S. investors, CleBer exhibited the "Oggun, iron horse" tractor it hopes to manufacture at a plant in Cuba's special development zone of Mariel.

At the time, said Granma, Clemmons explained "that the tractor was an updated version of a model manufactured from 1948 to 1955, with which many U.S. farmers made the transition to modern farming techniques, and which should be very useful under current conditions in Cuban agriculture."

Clemmons and Berenthal say their objective is not just to "sell something" to Cuba, but to establish a business "that can solve the problems that they consider are the most important problems."

The partners, added Granma, are "interested in working with Cuban specialists to improve the tractor," which is expected to sell for below 10,000 U.S. dollars

In an interview published on Tuesday, Orlando Hernandez Guillen, president of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce and a member of the trade delegation visiting in Washington, said he hoped the CleBer enterprise "becomes a point of reference" for future trade between the two nations.

Cuba and the U.S. restored diplomatic relations in July 2015, but the U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean island remains. Endit