Cuba Hails First Shipment of U.S. Food in Four Decades
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HAVANA — Cuba hailed the imminent arrival of the first commercial shipment of U.S. food in four decades Friday as an important step toward improving relations between the estranged nations.
“This breaks with 40 years,” Foreign Investment Minister Marta Lomas said of the shipment of 24,000 tons of corn from Archer Daniels Midland Co. It is to arrive on a Mexico-based ship Sunday.
The U.S. imposed an embargo on Cuba after President Fidel Castro’s 1959 Communist revolution.
The Mexican ship is the first of various boats that will bring U.S. food and medicine. Cuba purchased the goods after Hurricane Michelle in November.
While the transactions are a symbolic first, both sides have stressed they are a “one-time” response to the emergency created by Cuba’s worst storm in 50 years.
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