Call it rum and cigar diplomacy: The few Americans allowed to visit Cuba are eager to finally legally bring home the communist island’s once forbidden fruits.
While Washington and Havana seek to normalize ties, US President Barack Obama added rum and cigars to the diplomatic mix last month by allowing Americans to fly back with US$100 worth of Cuban tobacco and alcohol.
“This was huge news. To have this opening after so many years is a giant step for both nations,” said Alexis Batista, a bartender in Havana’s Rum Museum.
Photo: Bloomberg
“It’s very positive for the economy to have commerce flowing between the two countries. It’s something that must benefit the people,” he said after squeezing sugarcane through a grinder to make guarapo juice for a group of European tourists.
The rum company Havana Club — co-owned by the Cuban government and French spirits giant Pernod Ricard — says it it is ready to sell to US visitors, but also has a strategy to enter the US market — if the decades-old embargo is lifted one day.
Cuban cigar sellers also want to see Americans put Cohibas and Montecristos in their suitcases.
However, for now they will have to settle for purchases from the few Americans who can visit Cuba under specific tours because regular tourism remains forbidden until the US Congress lifts the embargo.
Meryl Cohen, a 29-year-old Washington resident, was planning to buy some cigars and rum as she took part in a religious tour of Havana with a Jewish group.
“It’s more symbolic than anything, but I think it’s showing that Americans can be tourists like all the other tourists that come here, and that we can partake in what is a huge symbol of the Cuban nation, the rum and the cigars,” Cohen said as she hopped back on a bus near Havana’s seaside fort.
Cohen’s group came to Cuba under a religious license, one of the 12 categories of people allowed by the US government to visit Cuba, though under Obama’s new rules, they no longer have to apply for a permit before traveling.
Robert Raisler, a 78-year-old retired computer programmer on an educational tour, said he would shop for rum and cigars, but had to check prices first.
“When we first planned this trip, we were told that we could buy none of either,” he said.
“And then when President Obama gave his talk about opening things up a bit, we learned that the new limit was US$100. I thought: ‘It’s about time,’” he said as he visited Arms Square, where book sellers offer tomes about icons of the Cuban revolution.
While Havana Club is ready to sell to US visitors, it is also prepared for the day it can export to the US.
“We have the available product, good internal production capacity and all the conditions ready to enter the US market as soon as possible,” Havana Club director of exports Sergio Valdes Dorta said. “The potential is very high. The brand is already well-known and has a good reputation.”
With 50 million bottles sold each year, Havana Club is third behind rivals Bacardi — the Cuban company that fled to Bermuda after the 1959 revolution — and Jamaica’s Captain Morgan in global sales.
The battle with Bacardi for the US market started years ago. Havana Club created the name Havanisa for the day it can sell in the US after Bacardi won a legal battle blocking it from using its famous brand.
Bacardi declined to comment on how the US-Cuba rapprochement would affect its business, and whether the company could one day sue to reclaim what it lost in the revolution.
Barbara Elias Hernandez, a 45-year-old who works in an arts and crafts market in Havana’s port, said she never understood why Americans were barred from buying cigars.
“They smoked them here, but then they couldn’t take them home,” she said, voicing hope that more Americans would buy cigars now. “It’s a new market that we are entering.”
However, Washington’s new Cuban tobacco rules will have little impact on the US market, because US$100 will not buy you much (three large Cohibas or 10 Montecristo No. 2) and few Americans are allowed to get them, said David Savona, executive editor of the US magazine Cigar Aficionado.
“That said, the news about Cuba has added to the interest in cigars because when you think about Cuba, you can’t help thinking about cigars,” he said. “The forbidden fruit is very good indeed and people want it.”
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his