Bush plan targets Cuban nickel [View All]

[CHIMO]

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration vowed Monday to crack down on nickel exports from Cuba, at least half of which are accounted for by Canada's Sherritt International Corp., alleging that the money from the sales is being “diverted to maintain the regime's repressive security apparatus.”

But Sherritt's chairman, Ian Delaney, immediately labelled the proposed actions as “nothing new” and said that the continuing U.S. embargo on the Communist nation is simply “nonsense.”

With an eye on Florida's vote-rich Cuban-American community, President George W. Bush said Monday he would go ahead with recommendations of a special government-appointed group known as the Commission for Assistance for a Free Cuba. The commission called for a range of policies aimed at strangling the regime of President Fidel Castro, including the expenditure of $80-million (U.S.) to assist political opposition and make it more difficult to provide humanitarian aid and remittances to Cubans.

The report specifically calls for a crackdown on nickel exports, which it says now account for “nearly half of the regime's current foreign income.”

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