RTTue, 05 Mar 2019 04:44 UTC
© Express NewsUS President Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump, seemingly punishing Havana for supporting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro,
has tightened the trade embargo in a way that would open [a] way for Americans to sue government-linked Cuban companies.The measure takes the unprecedented step of permitting lawsuits against Cuban companies using properties confiscated after Fidel Castro took power in 1959, though it limits such suits to about 200 businesses and government agencies that are already subject to "enhanced" sanctions due to their close ties with the Cuban government.
"I strongly reject the State Department's announcement to authorize lawsuits under Title III of the Helms-Burton act, against a list of Cuban companies
arbitrarily sanctioned by the Trump administration," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez tweeted, calling the beefed-up sanctions an "unacceptable threat against the world."
The move activates part of a 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which if fully unleashed could potentially trigger a barrage of international lawsuits - against the US, by allies who aren't interested in curtailing their business ventures in Cuba in order to conform to an embargo even Trump's predecessor saw as a Cold War relic.
The Helms-Burton Act was designed to "pressure" Cuba into "peaceful democratic change" - a contradiction not unlike the sanctions recently passed against sanction-choked Venezuela.
Maduro remains President of Venezuela despite the best efforts of the Trump administration to replace him with opposition leader Juan Guaido.
National Security Adviser John Bolton, in an echo of George W. Bush's notorious "axis of evil," has lumped together Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua as a "troika of tyranny" and recently praised the Monroe Doctrine which calls for the US to expand its "sphere of influence" throughout the western hemisphere.
One of Trump's first acts as president was to reverse Barack Obama's loosening of trade restrictions with Cuba, which has been economically persona non grata since the revolution in 1959. Ironically, one of his companies may have
violated the embargo in 1998 - a year before he floated his first presidential campaign by promising Cuban expats he'd never lift the embargo.
Comment: More from
NBC News, 3/4/2019:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a 30-day "partial waiver" to a law known as the Libertad or Helms-Burton Act, allowing U.S. citizens to bring lawsuits in U.S. federal court against about 200 Cuban entities on a "restricted list" that have been subject to U.S. sanctions. The list includes entities under the control of Cuban military intelligence or security forces, but foreign companies invested in the island will be protected against such suits - at least for now.
According to research from the U.S. Cuba Trade & Economic Council, a nonprofit that promotes trade with Cuba, companies in 20 countries could face lawsuits from owners who have certified claims to confiscated property. The list includes numerous U.S. and European airlines and cruise lines, and major hotel chains such as Spain's NH Hotel Group and Melia Hotels International. There are also concerns that both the major port in Havana and the international airport are built at least partially on land owned before the revolution by Cubans who later emigrated to the U.S.
Exempting companies in the U.S. and allied countries will help prevent a backlash from companies like Marriott International, which has started expanding into Cuba since the two countries restored relations under President Barack Obama. It could also avert a new tension point with Europe, where countries are still bristling from the Trump administration's threats to sanction companies that maintain business in Iran.
Pompeo told the U.N. Security Council in January. "Let's be crystal clear: The foreign power meddling in Venezuela today is Cuba." Cuba has adamantly denied that claim, with Rodriguez, the foreign minister, challenging the United States to provide proof. He said the roughly 20,000 Cubans in Venezuela are all civilians.
Comment: More from NBC News, 3/4/2019: