Hillary Clinton's ties to Florida's Sugar Barons is ad-worthy, ahead of FL primary

[seafan]

Because pointing out truth for voters is important when running for president. Lies will have no safe haven in this election.


Big Sugar Fights to Protect a Sweet Deal With U.S. Lawmakers, August 27, 2015

Nowhere is the industry’s clout felt more than in Florida, base of the nation’s most powerful sugar barons, the Fanjul brothers. Between them, the Fanjuls -- Alfonso, Jose, Alexander and Andres -- have long-standing ties to at least three U.S. presidential candidates: Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida; Florida Governor Jeb Bush, another Republican; and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner.

Rubio recently defended the U.S. sugar program at an event organized by major Republican donors Charles and David Koch. Bush wants to phase it out, according to a spokesman. The Clinton campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

(emphasis mine)


A sweet deal: The royal family of cane benefits from political giving, July 23, 2015

WASHINGTON — Charlotte Ponticelli used to work for the State Department, but when she describes a recent visit to sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic, she ditches the diplomat speak.

“What I saw made me sick,” she says of the laborers’ living conditions. “[The cane workers] were skeletons wearing rags. One old man told us, ‘We have no access to anything from our pensions.’ They had worked for 40 to 50 years, and nothing … I wanted to cry all the way home. I thought, ‘After … all this work, this is how these people live?’”

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In 2013, after a two-year investigation, the department issued a report expressing concern that the Dominican government might be failing to protect sugar workers. The report was followed by three reviews, one every six months, that found working conditions still lacking. But as the DOL pushed for reform in Dominican sugar, members of Congress and other politicians maintained lucrative relationships with the royal family of cane: the Fanjuls.

The four Fanjul brothers have an outsize presence in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. In the DR, their American company, Central Romana, produces most of the country’s sugar. In the U.S., the Fanjuls also grow cane and spend heavily in Washington, ranking among the sugar industry’s top political donors and biggest spenders on lobbying. As big players in both countries, they benefit from a highly profitable combination of factors: In the DR, Central Romana pays some of the lowest wages in the country, produces most of the country’s allotment of sugar exported to the U.S. and, thanks to CAFTA-DR, pays dwindling tariffs for those exports. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Fanjuls sell their sugar at sometimes two to three times the global market price, thanks to import limits and price supports.

It’s the consummate immigrant success story. The Fanjul brothers and one sister, Alfonso, José, Andres, Alexander and Lian, come from a long line of powerful Cuban sugar producers. After Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, the family fled to Florida. They began growing cane in and around the Everglades and in the 1980s expanded production to the Dominican Republic, where their company is now the country’s largest private landowner and employer.

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Despite their international holdings, the Fanjuls have kept their focus on ensuring that their U.S. operations are as secure and profitable as possible, with little pushback from the government. In last year’s election cycle, the Florida Crystals political action committee and the company’s employees together contributed more than $860,000 to candidates and political spending groups. Also in 2014, Florida Crystals spent more than $1 million lobbying Congress, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, largely on import tariffs and policies on biofuels and clean water.

The sugar industry, too, is a heavy donor. According to the nonpartisan research group Center for Responsive Politics, the industry gave more than $5 million to members of Congress in the last election cycle, an all-time high. What the industry gets in return for all this are domestic controls and import tariffs that keep prices up and profits high for U.S. sugar producers, perpetuating a controversial system.

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The Fanjul family donates to legislators of both parties as well. Alfonso, aka Alfy, consistently supports Democratic candidates and causes, while his younger brother José, aka Pepe, does the same for Republicans. And two longtime family favorites are current presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton and Sen. Marco Rubio. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Florida Crystals’ employees and dependents rank among Rubio’s top five contributors since 2009. (emphasis added)

Ahead of the 2008 presidential elections, Andres directly contributed almost three times as much as Alfy did to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but Alfonso’s relationship with the Clintons is more well-known. The Alfonso Fanjul-Bill Clinton friendship dates to Clinton’s first run for president in 1992, when Fanjul co-chaired his campaign in Florida. And after Fanjul visited Cuba in 2012 and 2013, he reportedly told then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that his views — once staunchly pro-embargo — were changing. Alfy and Andres also signed letters to President Barack Obama over the past year, urging increased engagement with Cuba.

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http://america.aljazeera.com/content/ajam/multimedia/2015/7/fanjul-family-benefits-political-donations/jcr:content/mainpar/textimage_0/image.adapt.990.high.fanjul_brothers_sugar_hrc.1437766232249.jpg
José Fanjul Sr., left, and Hillary Rodham Clinton at a gala hosted by the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in 2013. Clint Spaulding / Patrick McMullan / Sipa


http://america.aljazeera.com/content/ajam/multimedia/2015/7/fanjul-family-benefits-political-donations/jcr:content/mainpar/adaptiveimage_3/src.adapt.960.high.07-21-2015-sugar-diagram-largefont.1437766232249.jpg
Fanjul family political donations since 1990

In January (2015), Bill and Hillary Clinton visited their old friend and campaign donor Alfy at Casa de Campo, the Fanjuls’ 7,000-acre residential resort in the DR, where the Fanjuls have a second home. The resort’s website says that over dinner they chatted about Hillary’s possible presidential run.

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Sugar tycoon Alfonso Fanjul now open to investing in Cuba under ‘right circumstances’, February 2, 2014

Fanjul, who lives in Palm Beach, Fla., and whose family holdings include Domino Sugar and refineries across the United States, Latin America and Europe, has managed to maintain a remarkably low profile for a politically connected tycoon. His access to the highest levels of power was evident during the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s, when the special prosecutor’s report noted that President Bill Clinton received a call from Fanjul during a private Oval Office moment with the intern. (link to report added)

Last week, the Fanjul family’s influence over policymakers was on display when the U.S. House passed a farm bill that would cut subsidies to many agricultural products while leaving unscathed the controversial, taxpayer-backed program that protects sugar profits.

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Unlike most other Cuban Americans who travel to the island, Fanjul has direct access to some of America’s most important policymakers. After returning from his first trip, Fanjul met with his good friend, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to express his changing views on Cuba. In November, Fanjul once again discussed his evolving mind-set with Clinton and her husband at a Clinton Foundation fundraiser in the Miami home of Cuban American businessman Paul Cejas, a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium.

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Hillary Clinton, the putative Democratic front-runner for president if she chooses to run in 2016, spoke out in favor of the Obama administration’s actions relaxing restrictions on family travel and cash flow to the island. Yet she, like many politicians in both parties, has repeatedly expressed support for continued sanctions. She is close with several key players, besides Fanjul, who have stated an openness to more engagement with Cuba.

Fanjul, a longtime supporter of Bill Clinton’s campaigns and causes, would probably be a major donor, as well as a close adviser on Cuba-related matters, to Hillary Clinton should she run.

http://america.aljazeera.com/content/ajam/multimedia/2015/7/fanjul-family-benefits-political-donations/jcr:content/mainpar/adaptiveimage/src.adapt.960.high.dominican_republic_cane_michel2.1437766232249.jpg
Andrés Michel, 75, lost an eye cultivating cane meant for the sugar company Central Romana. He still works the fields.


Is the sugar barons' money more important to Hillary Clinton than the lives of people like Andrés Michel?


Why...., she's running for president! And the answer is as clear as day.

[MisterP]

1. from Fanjul to Facussé, if there's a modernizing oligarch with deep pockets Clinton's there