Ussr to rush at the beginning. No one knows. There is a lot of love and hate. Cubans have one of the highest awareness is of u. S. Brands in the world and one of the highest preferences in the world so if u. S. Companies launching into cuba comes with less cost than some other marketplace that makes it attractive so and thats because the folks do have, the people of cuba many of them have access. We saw what no one expected with fidel. Most people, most of the modeling done in the u. S. Government was fidels speaking, he drops dead worries in his office and people drop dead and people know where they dont know but no one expected a succession and then a transition from brother to brother. I would say dont expect raul dies and its a switch. Its going to be more of a wave. Thank you. Bill lane. Good morning. Bill lane with caterpillar and first of all i want to thank you for a Great Program and great timing particularly the fact that this is two days away from the big anniversary. Some o
U. S. Cuba relations and wonder how much of the ideas heard the word thought id never thought it would be a good place to be. [laughter] but were glad you are here. But it is consistent with the other cuba related events but over the years cuba has captures the imagination i remember back when we were trying to get support for the west colombia Free Trade Agreement that enjoys a lot of support from clocks on this panel with columbia represented the generating interest now in that was limited compared to cuba which seems to capture the imagination and. Is not on the politics of the u. S. Cuba relations we dont have time to go through the long history but it is an emotional issue. There are families to have the property confiscated whose families were attended and have strong views with the current government in cuba but today we will focus on the president s announcement and what the perspectives are from the legal and Business Community i want to mention in that category of great timin
And that is that we went in with zero investment. And now, if you fast forward to where we are today, we actually cargo has a very robust animal feed business. We import u. S. Products into the vietnamese market. And, over that course of time weve also through our investments and through working in those communities, weve actually built our nearly our 70th school on the ground in vietnam. And so what we can say is that theres not only the power of trade, but theres the power of u. S. ÷uf of businesses to engage in whats known as commercial day diplomacy. so, in the case of cuba, cuba is alkx i ratjt when we normalize relations, we would have to ensure that we would gain the same access in cuba that the other wto members have. We would also have the pntr as part of that, as well. I would say two things about vietnam on the hill. That, to make it different from cuba, one is there was not an active proembargo vietnamese lobby, unlike cuba. fb secondly, the senators brought in their desir
Hypothesized a legacy project it. But i think were getting pushed off into side panels about lifting the embargo on capitol hill right now. Help me. Im an optimist. And i believe optimism keeps us going on the right path. Why wont a bill come out of committee. Leave it to the room to w judge whether a bill is going to come out of a republican controlled senate. Let me follow up on that. I mean my. Yq reading of the tea leaves is, as your conclusion, that congress is two views, some strongly in favor of lifting some strongly opposed toq2n the president , the steps hes already taken. And, if you had to bet, i think you would bet where youve placed your money, which is unlikely that there will be legislative action on this to either roll back what the president is doing or to advance policy further. My question to you is, in your initial remarks, you suggested that as a legal matter, the president has full, legal discretion toc to take very expansive steps. My question is do you believe t
It is good being with you. Let me first go on record saying i wholeheartedly agree with the president s change in direction. I think it is clear that over 50 years nothing has changed with the policy we had. Time says if you dont do the same thing over and over again and you get the same result. I wholeheartedly agree. I should also say that i do feel the passion of, for example, my good friend the Ranking Member of the western hemisphere, listening to his opening statement. And i would hope the kinds of questions just because the passion he has is for the people of cuba. In his opening statement, some of the quest as he has, hope it is that kind of dialogue that goes forward with some of the questions he has a trying to make sure there is a better day for the cuban people. And so in that regard, ive been down all of been to cuba several times in other places in latin america and the caribbean. And i have found that one of the major obstacles we have had in the region is on cuban polic