Mexico City – A meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel after the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, under pressure from the U.S. government, asked the Cubans to leave, the event’s organizer said Saturday.
Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government called Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., and pressured the chain to ask the Cubans to leave, arguing that the U.S. company was violating a 45-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
Jones organized the three-day meeting, which opened Thursday.
Valero Energy Corp., the United States’ biggest oil refiner, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Texas Port of Corpus Christi took part.
Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, could not confirm that the U.S. government pressured Starwood.
But she did say that “U.S. law prohibits U.S. persons and entities from providing services to Cuban national persons or entities, and the Sheraton, as a subsidiary of a U.S company, is bound by U.S. law.” Sheraton Hotel officials in Mexico City declined to comment.
The meeting was the first private-sector oil summit between the two countries. It resumed Saturday at the Colon Mission Reforma Hotel.
Raul Perez, who led the 16-member Cuban delegation sent to the meeting, said they were asked to leave the Sheraton without a refund.
“We haven’t done anything to violate U.S. laws,” he said.
The Mexican government declined to comment on the incident.
During the meeting Friday, Cuban officials urged U.S. corporations to lobby against the U.S. trade embargo and invest in the communist nation’s energy sector.
They also announced plans to double their drilling capacity and explore for oil in the waters off the Caribbean island.
In the two years since oil deposits were found off its coast, Cuba has inked exploration deals with Canadian, Chinese, Indian and Norwegian firms.
But U.S. corporations, their hands tied by the embargo, have been forced to watch the flurry of activity taking place less than 60 miles off the coast of Florida.
On Saturday, as the meeting resumed, Jay Brickman, of Crowley Maritime Services of Jacksonville, Fla., said he has sent some 200 shipments of agricultural products to Cuba since the U.S. began allowing limited agricultural trade in 2000.
“Cuba is a market worth the effort,” he said, “and it is one we should be committed to.” Cuban officials on Saturday agreed to buy $11 million in goods from Dairy America, the largest U.S. marketer of non-fat dry milk products, the company said.
Jones said this was the 10th event he organized to bring together Cuban officials with U.S. executives, and several of the past meetings were held at Starwood hotels in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
The meeting “was fully consistent with U.S. laws,” and no business deals with the energy sector took place, Jones said.
Jones said the purpose of the summit was for energy executives to learn about Cuba’s oil production and its growth potential.
Mike Olivier, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, said it was “embarrassing” that Cuban officials were booted from the hotel.
