When President Obama travels to Cuba next month — the first visit by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years — it will mark a historic step on the path to normalizing relations with the island nation.
While Obama is in Havana, two U.S. businessmen are hoping the president might spend some time with them — or even take a seat on a prototype of the tractor they plan to assemble and sell in Cuba.
Horace Clemmons of Paint Rock, Ala., and Saul Berenthal of Raleigh, N.C., have just received approval by the Obama administration to build the first U.S. factory in Cuba since the 1960 embargo. They plan to make tractors for small farms and have given their model a name any Cuban will recognize: Oggun. That's the name of a deity in the Santeria religion, the god of metal.
As their business, Cleber LLC, gears up, they keep in mind some encouraging words they heard from a Cuban who visited their booth at a trade fair in Havana. He told them, "You guys are doing something for the forgotten people of Cuba."
Clemmons, 72, and Berenthal, 71, have been business partners for decades. They worked for IBM for many years and then started their own software companies.
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4 comments:
They couldn't build an American factory, and sell the tractors to Cuba?
How will they get parts with the embargo on?
11:33,exactly should deport the company owners there also.I'm sure there is some kind of taxpayer subsidy along with this.
This is exactly why our government wants to be friends with Cuba now. They see dollar $igns.So American companies can build in Cuba and make billions. It is all about money. They owe their donators a favor and this is it. There is always a backdoor reason our government does anything. My bet is a lot of them have purchased stocks based on what they know about Cuba's future.This may be one of the things they are afraid Trump will find out about, when he becomes President.
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