Smoke Screen

By Adam Schaffer -- Tradeshow Week, 5/3/2004

Those of you who know Peter Nathan, president of PWN Exhibicon Intl., will agree that he's the definition of a "true gentleman." He is celebrating 50 years in the industry this year, is being inducted into the Convention Industry Council Hall of Leaders and has probably forgotten more about this business than most of us ever learn.

Peter ran two very successful shows in Cuba a few years back, the U.S. Healthcare Exhibition in January 2000 and the U.S. Food & Agribusiness Exhibition in September 2002. Peter is eager to return to Cuba to organize the shows again. The Cuban government has asked Peter to do it again. The exhibitors have asked Peter to do it again.

But the U.S. government won't let him. You can blame it on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control if you want.

What the U.S. government will apparently allow is the companies that exhibited at Peter's shows to go to Cuba for a conference called Cuba-U.S. Business Negotiations 2004 that began in Havana April 13. Who else was there? Three members of Congress (Democrats and Republicans), the lieutenant governor of Vermont, the Alabama commissioner of agriculture and industry, and the president of the Georgia State House of Representatives.

But who knew? Where were the photographers and reporters who covered Peter's shows in Havana for CNN, the New York Times and most every other major mainstream news outlet? It's one thing for Tradeshow Week to recognize accomplishments in this industry, it's another for a message about the value of face-to-face marketing to get out to the larger business community.

The U.S. government has given no one any clear reason as to why Peter cannot run his shows in Cuba. Everyone involved agrees that they're a great thing for those involved – most importantly the people of Cuba, who get food, medicine, and other things that the U.S. government should support.

It appears that the government is really trying to fly below the radar on this one. They want to sell goods to Cuba, but in an election year they don't want Americans to know much about it.

The kind of success that Peter had with his tradeshows in 2000 and 2002 is arguably not the kind of good news the current administration wants the Cuban expatriate community in South Florida to hear about, not given the political power that community has and the likelihood Florida could again play a central role in deciding the next president.

There is a 42-year-old policy in place that is clearly broken and being used, out of political expediency, to create a screen of cigar smoke.