Photo credit: Reuters

In his State of the Union address tonight, the President told Congress that the U.S. cannot afford to hang back while our competitors beat us to new markets. He called for America to double its exports, and expand every market opportunity we can. I thought to myself, really? Because the International Trade Commission concluded last year that we could expand U.S. farm exports to one country ninety miles away by half a billion dollars. That could nearly double our food exports to Cuba (which in 2004 was our 25th largest buyer) over the slumping 2009 numbers.

My jaw dropped to hear President Obama spend a good two minutes on the themes you hardly heard in 2009: trade, the Doha round, and keeping our "key" partners South Korea, Panama and Colombia - all of which signed Free Trade Agreements with the Bush Administration and to which so many Democrats have become increasingly allergic. If the President really was signaling he's willing to twist some Democratic arms on a trade agenda Republicans have been pushing for, I'll be shocked if a natural farm export market like Cuba doesn't end up on it.