In March 2009, Kansas Representative Jerry Moran (R) introduced a bill that would allow the U.S. agriculture industry to more easily sell products to Cuba. Known as the ‘Agricultural Export Facilitation Act of 2009’, it has since been referred to committee, where it remains.

The bill’s overall purpose is to reduce trade barriers between the U.S. and Cuba, but more specifically, “reverse regulations put in place in 2005 by the Bush Administration that have hindered agriculture and food exports under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (TSRA).”

TRSA, passed into law in 2000, represented the first major change in U.S.-Cuban trade policy since the embargo was instituted in the early ‘60s.

Since then, U.S. exports of agricultural products to Cuba have registered in the billions, and some believe that Cuba has the potential to be an even bigger source of revenue to the U.S. economy if trade barriers were eliminated.

To be competitive, U.S. exporters need to be able to travel to Cuba without unnecessary bureaucratic restriction. The Obama Administration moved to ease travel restrictions in April, but that mainly applies to Cuban-Americans, and not Americans engagingly specifically in sales-related travel.

Another key change that Moran’s bill seeks is to overturn a Bush Administration regulation that redefined what “payment of cash in advance” meant. “Under this regulation, cash payments from Cuba for U.S. agriculture exports are required to be made before ships leave U.S. ports rather than upon delivery, making it difficult for American farmers to sell their products to Cuba,” Moran’s congressional office has said.

If this bill ever gets out of committee, what comes next? Could the export of tobacco to Cuba ever be a possibility? The ban on U.S. imports from Cuba be dropped? If this were to happen, the U.S. has to be sure that Cuba is on a path to a more free and open market economy, and U.S. cigar manufacturers must have fair access to Cuban tobacco leaf. It’s the only just way for the original Cuban cigar families who were deprived of their trademarks during the revolution can be fully compensated for their losses.

Click here to read the bill in its entirety.