The freighter continued on to its next scheduled stop in Mexico, and the cargo was later returned to the shippers in the United States. The cargo may have been the problem. The ship contained humanitarian items, legal under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act passed by Congress last year. Shippers are not allowed to bring supplies from Cuba to its Interest Section in Washington, and sources in Washington said the Castro government does not think that's fair. Cuba also has insisted that it won't buy U.S. rice or other goods authorized by the act because of an amendment to the bill that bans U.S. financial institutions from providing support for trade exports.
Analysts say it is nearly impossible to conduct foreign trade without trade finance.
Sally Grooms Cowal, career diplomat and a former ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, has embarked in the past month on a campaign to lift the embargo. She said she doesn't care whether the Cubans and Castro really want to trade with the United States. She wants to lift the embargo and let the trading begin. The boy, now 7, was the object of a custody fight between his father and his Miami relatives after he nearly lost his life during his mother's attempt to go to Florida in a small boat. She said the Cuba Policy Foundation is centrist in philosophy, advocating democracy in Cuba but opposing the embargo.