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Why Building U.S. Agricultural Trade With Cuba Is a Long Road

U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba reached $431.2 million in 2024, but a narrow legal exception, difficult payment terms and tight Cuban purchasing power make broader trade a long road.
From TheFinanceBase Team4 min to read

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U.S. farmers can sell some agricultural products to Cuba, but the trade operates under a narrow exception to a continuing U.S. embargo. Even when an export is legally eligible, exporters face advance-notice rules, demanding payment terms, limited Cuban purchasing power and competition from suppliers that may offer credit. Geographic closeness alone has not made Cuba an easy market to grow.

Can U.S. farmers sell agricultural products to Cuba?

Yes, certain agricultural exports are permitted, but that does not mean trade is unrestricted. The Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 allowed specified agricultural sales while the broader embargo remained in place. The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) describes the current export-control pathway under License Exception AGR for eligible U.S.-origin agricultural commodities. USDA’s historical overview explains the 2000 law; BIS’s Cuba export-controls guidance sets out current requirements.

For an exporter, the key distinction is between legal permission and commercial feasibility. A product and transaction must qualify under current rules, and a buyer must still be able to pay on acceptable terms. Rules can change, so exporters should check the applicable BIS requirements for each transaction rather than assume that a past shipment establishes today’s eligibility.

How large is U.S. agricultural trade with Cuba?

The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service reports that U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba totaled $431.2 million in 2024. Poultry meat and products accounted for $313.49 million of that total, making the trade heavily concentrated in one category. The figures are agricultural exports, not the value of all U.S. exports to Cuba. USDA FAS country-level agricultural trade data provides the commodity breakdown.

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USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reported agricultural exports of $299 million in 2021, $319 million in 2022 and $337 million in 2023 in its 2024 report. The series shows growth over those years, but not a broad transformation in the mix: ERS found that chicken meat made up 89.5 percent of U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba over 2020–23. In 2023, the mix broadened somewhat to include pork, coffee and fruit juice. Almost all chicken exports in the report’s 2020–23 analysis were frozen cuts and offal, including leg quarters. USDA ERS’s 2024 analysis describes both the trade pattern and the market constraints.

Do not confuse the agricultural figures with USTR’s broader trade measure: the Office of the United States Trade Representative reports $809.6 million in U.S. goods exports to Cuba in 2025. That figure covers goods, not agriculture alone, and it is for a different year than the USDA agricultural total. USTR also reports $827.1 million in total U.S. goods trade with Cuba in 2025. Neither number is an agricultural-export figure. USTR’s Cuba trade summary identifies the scope of its totals and summarizes the embargo.

Why is agricultural trade with Cuba a long road?

Export rules require transaction-specific checks

Under BIS guidance, eligible commodities must meet the applicable definition and carry the EAR99 designation to use License Exception AGR. Exporters must notify BIS before shipment and check for objections; BIS says it may review a notification for up to 11 business days before shipment. Statutory timing requirements also apply to contracts and exports. These conditions make compliance part of transaction planning, not a box to check after a sale is arranged. Consult BIS’s current Cuba guidance for the rules that apply to a particular shipment.

Policy changes can affect other Cuba-related authorizations without changing AGR itself. For example, BIS says that, effective March 4, 2026, it suspended a provision of License Exception SCP for certain transactions involving foreign-fund deposits into Cuban-owned banks. That change concerns SCP, not the agricultural-commodity exception AGR. It is a reminder to distinguish exceptions and verify current rules rather than assume one policy change applies to every export pathway.

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Payment terms can put U.S. suppliers at a disadvantage

USDA ERS explains that authorized agricultural exports must be paid for in cash in advance or financed by a bank in a third country. That can be harder for a buyer than a purchase from a supplier willing to extend credit. A shipment may be legally allowed yet commercially unworkable if the buyer cannot arrange the required funds or financing.

Cuban purchasing power and supplier competition limit demand

Cuba buys agricultural products from multiple suppliers, including the European Union and Brazil. ERS reports that economic decline has made agricultural imports harder for the country to afford, while suppliers able to extend credit can be attractive even when they are farther away. For U.S. exporters, proximity is only one part of the offer: price, credit, logistics and reliability also matter. ERS captures the geographic paradox directly: “Given the geographic proximity of Cuba and the United States, Cuba would seem like a logical market for a broad array of U.S. agricultural products.”

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What would need to change for trade to grow?

Growth would depend on several conditions aligning, not simply on the distance between the two countries. Exporters would need products and transactions that qualify under current regulations, workable payment or financing arrangements, and Cuban buyers with the funds and demand to purchase. Their offers would also have to compete with established suppliers on price, credit and delivery reliability.

The available trade figures establish recent export values and a poultry-heavy product mix; they do not establish a forecast for future bilateral sales. The outlook therefore depends on regulation, financing, Cuban import capacity and commercial terms. The limited legal opening creates a route for some agricultural sales, but it does not remove the barriers that make broader expansion difficult.

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