To say Cuba is an untapped market for Texas exporters is an understatement.
The second-largest U.S. state trades with tiny Vatican City nearly as much as a nation of 11 million people a few hundred miles away, and it might not change anytime soon under President-elect Donald Trump.
In the days after Fidel Castro’s death, Trump has threatened to renege on recently negotiated trade relations between Cuba and the United States, tweeting that he will “terminate” trade unless Cuba is willing to “make a better deal.”
That means agricultural and manufacturing interests in Texas who hope to sell beef to a country where it can’t be purchased might need to temper hopes of increased exports in the coming years.
If Cuba was open for trade, Texas could export $18.8 million in agricultural products alone to the island – which would create $43 million in economic activity and over 200 jobs in the state, according to a 2015 report by the Center for North American Studies at Texas A&M University.
Cuba ranks 210th among all nations in total exports from Texas, just ahead of Vatican City and just behind Kiribati, a collection of coral atolls in the Central Pacific with a population of just over 100,000 people.
Just $62,291 in exports went to Cuba from Texas in 2015, including manufactured goods like cars and raw materials like oil and natural gas, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
President Barack Obama traveled to Cuba in March, where he met with Fidel Castro’s brother Raúl to discuss eliminating the decades-old trade embargo. In October, Obama lifted restrictions on bringing rum and cigars from Cuba into the United States.
But Fidel Castro’s death brought out a slew of politicians, mostly Republicans, criticizing Obama’s recent overtures to Cuba.
“What the Obama administration has done is strengthen Raúl Castro,” said Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, a Cuban-American. “Raúl is the dictator now.”
Cruz expressed hope that Trump’s administration will be tougher on Cuba.
“It is very much my hope and belief that with a new president coming into office in January, President Trump, a new administration, that U.S. foreign policy, not just to Cuba, but towards our enemies ... will no longer be a policy of weakness and appeasement, but instead using U.S. strength to force and press for change,” Cruz said in a television appearance with ABC News.