Cuba says it wants some US trade restrictions lifted instead, so it can buy American roofing and other construction materials to repair homes and the island's electrical grid. It also wants to buy food on credit - US law already permits Cuba to buy US food, but only with cash. Hurricanes Ike and Gustav damaged 320,000 Cuban homes, civil defense officials reported yesterday.
The Cuban government has not released an overall damage estimate, but the tally could surpass $2 billion. The government estimates the average cost of constructing a new home in Cuba to be $8,000. The storms also damaged agriculture and electrical grids.
Offers of US aid to Cuba are complicated by the countries' half-century standoff.
After Ike, the United States offered to give Cuba $100,000 in emergency aid and send a disaster team from a non-governmental organization to assess damage. Cuba expressed no interest, insisting that the United States could best help by allowing Cuba to buy American materials to undertake its own recovery.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday rejected the idea of lifting any aspect of the embargo. Cuba's Foreign Ministry said the United States often helps other countries without sending inspection teams. The United States "tries to suggest that it is desperate to cooperate with Cuba and that we are turning them down," it said.
On Wednesday, Cuban-born US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez told the Associated Press that the United States may ease some financing restrictions against Cuba, allowing Americans to donate more to relief groups that are providing aid to parts of the storm-ravaged island.
Still, Washington is not considering suspending any other part of its embargo, Gutierrez said.
Some aid organizations already had a presence in Cuba, including the Baltimore, Maryland-based Catholic Relief Services, which offered $130,000 following Gustav and has pledged to give more.
Cuban-American groups, presidential candidate Barack Obama and several other Democratic members of Congress have called on the Bush administration to relax restrictions on travel and remittances for people of Cuban origin to visit and bring cash and goods to relatives on the island.
