First U.S. Food Since ’62 in Cuba

Two ships carrying food from the United States arrived in Cuba on Sunday, completing the first direct trade between the two politically estranged countries since Washington slapped an embargo on the Communist-run island in 1962.

The historic sales, prompted by Hurricane Michelle, which devastated the Caribbean island’s crops last month, were the result of a year-old law that exempts food and medicine from U.S. trade sanctions.

The sales come despite Cuban President Fidel Castro’s pledge soon after the new law was signed not to buy “a single grain of U.S. rice or aspirin.”

He claimed that it discriminated against Cuba because the United States still prohibited private and government financing, as well as the import of Cuban products.

But Castro apparently changed his mind after Hurricane Michelle.

The M.V. Express, a container vessel owned by Florida-based Crowley Liner Services, glided into Havana Bay with 500 tons of frozen chicken sold by a U.S. subsidiary of the French firm Louis Dreyfus Corp.

A second ship, carrying 24,000 tons of corn sold by U.S. agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, arrived later in the day.

Representatives of American agribusiness and some U.S. officials hope the shipments will lead to increased trade with Cuba, eventually creating a new market for U.S. exports.

“We are heartened and cautiously optimistic,” said Larry Cunningham, senior vice president of corporate communications for Archer Daniels Midland, based in Decatur, Ill.