Longtime friend and blog reader Pat had a good catch (so to speak) with respect to yesterday’s post on the Ernest Hemingway International Billfishing Tournament in Cuba. The post noted that participation in the tournament by U.S. persons might be covered by the new OFAC General License in section 515.567(b) relating to participation in competitions in Cuba. Whether that license would apply depends upon whether Cubans could participate in the tournament, something which I thought was perhaps affected by the high cost of participation in the tournament.

Even if the OFAC license applied, U.S. participants who wanted to take their own boats into Cuban waters would need to deal with the temporary export of the boat into Cuban territorial waters, an export controlled by BIS. I noted that BIS had granted such licenses, but Pat pointed out in a comment to yesterday’s post that last September BIS amended license exception AVS to permit temporary sojourns of less than 14 days by U.S. recreational boats in Cuban waters as long as it was pursuant to travel authorized by a general or specific license from OFAC.

That’s a great point, and I had forgotten about the amendment to License Exception AVS. It also, given the 14 day sojourn limitation, raises the issue of the OFAC rule in section 515.207 that prohibits a boat that has entered Cuban waters and purchased goods (in this case, think live bait) from entering a U.S. port for 180 days.

OFAC does have an exception in section 515.550 for return in advance of this date by “vessel used solely for personal travel (and not transporting passengers)” and where the export was covered by BIS’s license exception AVS. As usual, OFAC’s drafting leaves much to be desired given that the distinction between personal travel and transporting passengers may not always be clear. Probably the distinction rests on whether the other passengers are paying or not, excluding, I suppose, personal friends sharing expenses. But I’m not sure I would want to run the risk of overstepping this not very well drawn line.

What about chartering a fishing boat in Miami to participate in the tournament? Although that would still probably be a “recreational vessel” covered by license exception AVS, it’s not clear whether that would be personal travel (by the charterers) or transporting passengers (by the captain and crew). I, for one, would want specific guidance from OFAC before getting on that boat.

ABOVE: Messrs. Wilkins and
Whitlock in Cuba

[See update to this post here.]

Every year Cuba has an internationally famous sport fishing tournament. Fisherman from the United States have always cast envious eyes at the tournament just a short hop a way from U.S. territorial waters, but, obviously, the U.S. embargo on Cuba poses just a few tiny problems.

Stan Wilkins, a Kansas City lawyer just published an article in the Kansas City Star detailing his participation in the tournament with his friend Bob Whitlock, both pictured to the right with Havana in the background. This provides a good opportunity to discuss the regulatory requirements in play, particularly since Mr. Wilkins says little about how he actually managed to fish the tournament, other than to say, quite incorrectly, that “[f]ishermen may qualify for travel under the new ‘general license’ category.”

Given that there is no general license for “fishermen,” the general license that would most likely be relevant and available here is the one set forth in section 515.567(b). That general license covers “athletic and other competitions.” No offense to any fisherman out there, but I’d say that the fishing tournament is an “other.” (This is probably because when I go fishing it’s not terribly athletic. My arms mostly get used to carry the beer can to my mouth and almost never to pull an actual fish out of the water. For some reason, incomprehensible to me, fish always turn their noses up at my bait and lures.) Certainly, the people-to-people general license won’t work unless Cuban fish count.

There is, however, a significant qualification to the General License for athletic and other competitions: the competition must be “open for attendance, and in relevant situations participation, by the Cuban public.” I’d say that since you can’t attend a fishing tournament by, say, sitting in lawn chairs on the beach, this is one of those “relevant situations” where the tournament must be open to participation by Cubans.

The official website registration form does have “Cuba” listed as a country in its drop down list, so Cubans can, at least in theory, register and participate. But the site also lists a registration fee of 450 CUC (or about US$450). Given the average salary of Cubans is approximately $20 CUC per month, it seems fair to wonder if an event that requires an amount equal to 2 years salary is really open to Cubans. But I suppose setion 515.567(b) could be read to say that putting Cuba in the drop down list on the registration form is enough.

Readers of this blog, particularly those who remember the sad saga of a ship called Lethal Weapon, probably recognize another procedural hurdle to participation by U.S. fishermen, at least fishermen who want to use their own boats and equipment (which is, of course, more or less the point). Sailing into Cuba for the tournament is an export, albeit temporary, of the boat and requires a license from BIS. BIS has granted them in the past, with conditions, so this part is doable, even if it is another layer of red tape.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) last week updated its Cuba FAQs with this perplexing little blurb that can only charitably actually be called an “answer” or the “A” in FAQ.

68. May a person subject to U.S. jurisdiction export or reexport to Cuba items that include U.S.-origin content, but are not 100 percent U.S.-origin?

Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction may engage in all transactions ordinarily incident to the exportation or reexportation of 100 percent U.S.-origin items from a third country to Cuba, consistent with the export licensing policy of the Department of Commerce. Items that are not 100 percent U.S.-origin would require OFAC authorization, which would be subject to certain statutory restrictions.

This is nothing more than a paraphrase of section 515.533(a)(1) of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations. In fact, the FAQ might have been more clearly stated and just as useful if it was written this way:

68. Do you really mean what you say in section 515.533(a)(1)?

Yes.

Of course, the FAQ neatly dodges the ugly truth that if the item is 99 percent U.S.-content, then you will need a license from both BIS and OFAC to reexport that item from a foreign country to Cuba. You want real export reform? Here’s where you start. There is no need in this instance, or ever in any other instance, for two federal agencies to decide whether something can be exported. Of course, you could avoid the double license requirement by shipping the item from the third country to the U.S. before exporting it to Cuba in which case you will only need the BIS license. This workaround further illustrates how absurd the double licensing requirement is here.

There is a second ugly truth that the FAQ dodges. Both the FAQ and section 515.533(a)(1) imagine that the phrase “100 percent U.S.-origin items” actually means something and can be determined to be true or false with respect to any given product. Nowhere in OFAC’s rules, or FAQs, or website, or presumably even on scraps of paper on the floor of OFAC’s basement is there any guidance as to how to determine U.S. content. Anyone who has ever struggled with this issue in its many contexts (including customs country of origin rules) will realize that there are a number of ways to analyze such a question, based on tariff shift rules, substantial transformation rules or the FTC’s “substantially produced in” rule. And often, if not almost always, each of these rules will result in a different country of origin for a product.

Take this example: apples grown and packaged in the United States are packaged in boxes made in the United States with cardboard imported from Canada. A substantial transformation rule might say that the box was U.S. origin; a tariff shift rule might say that it was not; and the substantially produced test would also probably say that it was not. Under the tariff shift rule, BIS licenses the reexport; using the others then both may have to license the re-export.

Here’s a harder case: take the same example above but with the box made in the United States with U.S. cardboard made from U.S. trees and printed with ink made in the United States, although one of the chemicals in the ink is imported from China. Probably under all the tests described above, the packaged apples would be 100 percent origin. Still, there is a Chinese chemical in the ink on the box. Without BIS or OFAC committing to any of the three tests described above, this is not a 100 percent origin U.S. product.

That being said, there are probably no 100 percent origin U.S. products (short of unpackaged agricultural produce without foreign-produced pesticide residue). In that case, you always need both licenses for re-exports and there was really no need at all — unless there was some desire to confuse — for Cuba FAQ 68.

Photo Credit: Havana by Bryan Ledgard [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/nwFDPh [cropped and processed]