A Tampa Bay area delegation on a fact-finding visit to Cuba met with the president of the Cuba National Assembly, among others, in sessions that Tampa Port Authority Commissioner Carl Lindell said reinforced the need for the United States to normalize trade with the neighboring nation.
Lindell, Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern and about 10 others from the Bay area were part of a delegation that met for 31/2 hours with Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's national assembly. The group had meetings from Friday through Tuesday centered in Havana, with road trips and a fishing trip mixed in.
Lindell paid his own expenses. Mulhern said she used her own money beyond about $1,380 for hotel, airfare and travel visa expenses drawn from her city council member discretionary account.
"It's all about moving people and goods between our countries without restrictions," said Lindell, a Tampa developer who, along with Mulhern, took the trip on their own initiatives, not at the direction of the city council and port commission.
"We have to be pragmatic right now, and the first thing to do is get Congress to drop the embargo," Lindell said.
Lindell said meetings with Alarcon, and others, including representatives of the Cuba trade group Alimport, indicated Cubans appeared optimistic that the Obama administration would change the rules affecting U.S. travel and commerce with Cuba.
Lindell and other officials hope to create trade opportunities between the Bay area and Cuba, in particular at the Port of Tampa.
The group also paid a humanitarian visit to a convent in Old Havana and made a $2,000 donation to the nuns of St. Brigid for their work with the elderly.
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