Period TABLE 24 VALUE OF VISIBLE CUBAN IMPORTS FROM 85,193 50 96,565 99,331 86 115,646 370,831 363,778 301,709 79 324,368 142,678 147,676 127,288 211,508 SOURCE: Cuba Sugar Yearbook. 1 Visible imports and exports do not include numerous items such as payment for ocean freight and insurance, tourists' expenditures and returns on American investments in Cuba. 2 These figures differ from United States Government data covering the same years. See Tables 26 and 27. 3 Preliminary. Farmers in major corn-hog producing states such as Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Minnesota, rely on lard exports for a large part of their income. Since 1927, more than one-fourth of the lard produced in this country has been exported and Cuba, Germany and United Kingdom have been the largest users of United States lard. Exports of this commodity to Cuba since 1927 have amounted to about $228,000,000. United States exports of cotton manufactures to Cuba for the twentyfive years ended with 1951 were valued at about $308,000,000, or 7 per cent of total exports of such goods. Prior to World War II, which caused a large increase in the export of cotton manufactures to war-devastated Europe, Cuba took nearly 15 per cent of all the cotton manufactures exported from this country. The industrial production and economic prosperity of important textile manufacturing states, such as North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts and Connecticut, are thus affected by the volume of purchases by Cuba. United States exports of machinery and vehicles during the 24-year period ended with 1951 were valued in excess of $807,000,000 or about 18 per cent of all exports from this country to Cuba. In addition, the United States sells to Cuba large quantities of iron, steel and other metal products not classed as machinery and vehicles. Trade in all these commodities is particularly important to heavily industrialized states such as Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. Exports of wheat flour to Cuba amounted to about $208,000,000 for the 25-year period, 1927-1951, or approximately 9 per cent of all wheat flour sold abroad by the United States. The primary factors which control the volume of goods Cuba can buy from the United States are the quantity of Cuban sugar which the United States permits to enter this country and the rates of the tariffs and excise taxes imposed by both countries. Most of Cuba's purchases from the United States are paid for by sugar sales to this country. As Chart XXV illustrates, there is a direct relationship between the quantity of sugar imported from Cuba by the United States and the purchase of United States goods by Cuba. From 1929 to 1932, for instance, the quantity of Cuban sugar shipped to the United States declined more than one-half, while the value of United States exports to Cuba dropped to about one-fourth its former level. Between 1933 and 1944, the quantity of Cuban sugar purchased by this country increased nearly 3.5 times and the value of United States exports to Cuba was multiplied about 5 times. From 1945 to 1947, sugar purchases increased about 75 per cent and the value of exports to Cuba rose 150 per cent. Both purchases of Cuban sugar and exports to Cuba declined from 1947 through 1949. However, large quantities of Cuban sugar, in addition to those shown in Chart XXV, have been purchased with money supplied by the United States. This has helped to maintain Cuban purchasing power for United States goods, and to make possible the record Cuban purchases in 1951. SOURCE: United States Department of Commerce. 1 Exclusive of commodities in "special category" for which data are withheld by the Government for security reasons. The value of United States exports of all kinds of commodities to Cuba varies The general relationship between purchases of Cuban sugar and volume of sales to Cuba holds not only for total exports, but also for major commodities such as machinery and vehicles, rice, cotton textiles, wheat flour and lard. |