US Gov’t New Hostile Measures against Cuba despite Int’l Rejection

The Trump administration is imposing on Thursday another hostile measure against Cuba by applying Title III of the Helms-Burton Law, despite rejection in the US and the international community.

Ignoring calls from US political and business sectors and Washington’s traditional allies like the European Union and Canada, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on April 17 that his administration would stop suspending the application of the controversial article as of May 2.

The Helms-Burton Act, which came into force in 1996, coded the blockade of Cuba and strengthened its extraterritorial scope. It aims to internationalize that policy by means of coercive measures against third countries in order to interrupt investments and trade with Cuba and to submit those sovereign States to the White House’s will.

It also seeks to annul a country’s sovereign right to the nationalization of foreign and national assets.

Title III of the Helms-Burton Law says that those who demand properties that were nationalized in Cuba, including people who were not US citizens at the time, must be protected, and establishes a group of norms for filing lawsuits in US courts.

The objective is to suffocate the island economically in one more effort to topple its government. If implemented, any Cuban would see how lawsuits will be filed in US courts over their houses, workplaces, their children’s schools, polyclinics and land where houses have been built.

Pompeo’s announcement unleashed widespread opposition and Cuba stressed the article is inapplicable according to Cuban laws.