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U.S. embargo reaches into Mexico

MEXICO CITY - A meeting between Cuban officials and U.S. energy executives was moved to another hotel after the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, under pressure from the U.S. government, asked the Cubans to leave, the event's organizer said Saturday.

Kirby Jones, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, said the U.S. government called Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and pressured the chain to ask the Cubans to leave, arguing that the U.S. company was violating a 45-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.

Jones organized the three-day meeting, which opened Thursday. Valero Energy Corp., the United States' biggest oil refiner, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Texas Port of Corpus Christi took part.

Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, could not confirm that the U.S. government pressured Starwood.

But she did say that "U.S. law prohibits U.S. persons and entities from providing services to Cuban national persons or entities, and the Sheraton, as a subsidiary of a U.S. company, is bound by U.S. law."

Sheraton Hotel officials in Mexico City declined to comment.

The meeting was the first private-sector oil summit between the two countries. It resumed Saturday at the Colon Mission Reforma Hotel.

Raul Perez, who led the 16-member Cuban delegation sent to the meeting, said they were asked to leave the Sheraton without a refund.

"We haven't done anything to violate U.S. laws," he said.

The Mexican government declined to comment on the incident.

During the meeting Friday, Cuban officials urged U.S. corporations to lobby against the U.S. trade embargo and invest in the communist nation's energy sector.

They also announced plans to double their drilling capacity and explore for oil in the waters off the Caribbean island.

In the two years since oil deposits were found off its coast, Cuba has inked exploration deals with Canadian, Chinese, Indian and Norwegian firms.

But U.S. corporations, their hands tied by the embargo, have been forced to watch the flurry of activity taking place less than 60 miles off the coast of Florida.

[Last modified February 5, 2006, 01:23:11]