Aurelio Portuondo was
a vice president in the Cuban Trading Company and a lawyer by profession.
He was an executive member of the Asociación Nacional de Hacendados
Cubanos and the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. As a vice president in
the Cuban Trading Company, Portuondo was the company's liaison to the Cuban
government and advised the company on matters related to legislation, government
regulation, and labor disputes. He was a Cuban delegate to the International
Sugar Conference of 1929 and one of several representatives for Cuba in
the 1933 trade negotiations leading up to the United States-Cuba Reciprocity
Treaty of 1934. The creation of this file, and its existence in the
New York records of the Czarnikow-Rionda Company, presumably occured during
his lengthy trips to Washington and New York to participate in the 1934
treaty talks.
This series consists
of correspondence received and sent by Portuondo from May, 1933 to April,
1935. The principal correspondents are Manuel Rionda y Polleo, president
of the Czarnikow-Rionda Company, and Higinio Fanjúl, president of
the Cuban Trading Company. The letters cover a variety of subjects
including day-to-day operations of the Cuban Trading Company, foreclosure
proceedings on several Cuban sugar estates, and the political and social
upheaval occurring in Cuba during this time period. The single largest
topic, though, is the trade negotiation. Opinions are expressed about
the reaction of beet and cane sugar producers in the United States and
its possessions and the effect of the Cuban political situation on Cuba's
trade position.