Dive Brief:
- Kansas wheat growers stand to win big as trade restrictions with Cuba are eased.
- Kansas, the largest wheat-producing state, produces the hard red winter variety preferred for use in bread in Cuba. Kansas also has extensive rail connections to Gulf of Mexico ports, making export of the crop easy.
- U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, has called on the federal government to immediately dismantle regulations to impair exports to Cuba.
Dive Insight:
The politics of Kansas-to-Cuba wheat is quite interesting. Agricultural commodities are already exempt from the trade barriers imposed on the communist nation. But former President George W. Bush imposed costly regulations on shipments.
Now that President Obama has proposed a new approach, the political battle over how best to deal with Cuba has split along the familiar lines of Republican vs. Democrat. But in Kansas, Obama may find himself with a few Republican allies.
