Kaycee Lagarde

klagarde@pnj.com

Changes in relations between the United States and Cuba announced Wednesday by President Barack Obama could significantly impact trade and create jobs at the Port of Pensacola, once a major port of trade with the island nation.

Port Director Amy Miller said it will take time to see exactly what the changes concerning trade with Cuba entail, but any loosening of restrictions would likely benefit the port.

"It could conceivably liberalize trade with Cuba, which could conceivably benefit of course not just the Port of Pensacola, but ports across the Gulf Coast region," Miller said. "Waterborne trade tends to move in the most geographically efficient trade lanes, and so the Gulf of Mexico region, because of our geographical relation to Cuba, would stand to gain from any further opening of trade."

The Port of Pensacola broke off trade with Cuba in 1960 and began doing limited trade with the country in the early 2000s, Miller said, mainly food, medical supplies and construction materials.

"The terms of that trade said it could only be exported from the U.S. to Cuba, and it had to be paid for in advance," Miller said.

Pensacola also did regular shipments of frozen poultry to Cuba until several years ago when the port's freezer terminal closed, Miller said.

With an existing monthly service shipping lumber and other products to ports throughout the Caribbean, Miller said it would be possible to expand that service to include Cuban port calls, which could bring additional day labor to the port.

"As we move more product through the port, and as we gain more port calls, then the demand for vessel loading and unloading onshore labor increases," Miller said.

Greater Pensacola Chamber President and CEO Jerry Maygarden, who visited Cuba in 2002 during his last year in the Florida Legislature to help re-establish trade relations between Pensacola and Havana, said he is optimistic about Wednesday's announcement.

"I don't think our embargo strategy has worked at all," said Maygarden, a longtime advocate of improving trade relations with Cuba. "All we've done is isolated the U.S. from an 11 million-person marketplace that is doing trade with the rest of the world."

Havana-born Robert de Varona of Pensacola, who left Cuba in 1960 and fought in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 before coming to the U.S., said he is "cautiously optimistic" about improving relations between the two countries.

"My dream, and I think the hope of every Cuban, is to see a free Cuba,"de Varona said. "And this is not bringing freedom to Cuba, but it might be something that might influence the freedom movement in Cuba, and hopefully that will be the case."

De Varona said he wants to see democracy and financial prosperity for Cuba, but for now, he said he will be waiting to see what actions stem from any changes in U.S.-Cuban relations.

"It could be very beneficial to Cuba and for the Cuban people, but at the same time, I am somewhat skeptical that that is going to be the case," de Varona said. "We need to see this new policy of the president, how they're going to influence the movement toward freedom and democracy."