Saul Berenthal, a co-founder of the company that hoped to assemble farm tractors in Cuba, told the Miami Herald, “We’re not giving up,” after Cuba rejected the proposal. Interviewed at the Cleber tractor booth at a trade show in Havana, Berenthal said the Paint Rock, AL, company will build its tractors in the United States and try to export them to Cuba and other countries.
“We’re here for the long run. We understand the process,” Berenthal told the Herald. Cuba rejected Cleber’s plan to assemble its small-horsepower, low-maintenance tractors in an economic development zone in Mariel. Instead, Berenthal said, the company was encouraged to work with agencies interested in importing agricultural tractors.
President Obama mentioned the Cleber project during a visit to Cuba in March, turning it into a high-profile part of the normalization of relations between the countries. John Kavulich, president of a group that monitors U.S.-Cuba trade, said Cuba’s long campaign against the U.S. trade embargo may have played a role in the rejection of the Cleber plant.
On its website, Cleber says it soon will begin sales over the internet of its tractors to U.S. and Canadian customers. “We want to enable the rebirth of the small family farm in America,” says the company.