US threat looms over foreign firms trading with Cuba

HAVANA: US President Donald Trump’s administration is brandishing the threat of sanctions against foreign companies “trafficking” with Cuba, a move hithertomothballedbyWashington so as not to offend allies.

The White House has broken with two decades of precedent in threatening to activate Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which extended the US embargo to apply to foreign companies trading with Cuba.

The European Union is Cuba’s largest foreign investor and will watch with interest as the countdown to Trump’s March 17 deadline to activate new sanctions against Cuba approaches.

Title III specifically penalises foreign companies allegedly “trafficking” property that was confiscated by the Cuban regime under Fidel Castro but previously belonged to US nationals or Cuban immigrants to the US.

Although the Helms-Burton Act was signed in 1996, Title III was been systematically suspended every six months to prevent discord between the US and key partners, including the EU.

But that may come to an end as earlier this year, Trump fixed a 45-day suspension from February 1 that expires on March 17.

“I think the Trump administration is trying to create confusion ... to scare off investment in Cuba,” the European Union’s ambassador to Havana, Alberto Navarro told AFP.

He said the EU would view the move as “a sword of Damocles” for its companies in Cuba.

“We’re very worried about this,” added Navarro.

“We cannot accept that a country tries to impose its laws outside its own borders ... that would be a return to the jungle.”

After years of thaw introduced under the administration of US president Barack Obama, Washington has returned to the language of the Cold War in the once-again frosty US-Cuba relationship.

“We encourage any person doing business in Cuba to reconsider whether they are trafficking in confiscated property and abetting this dictatorship,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January.

Activating Title III could open the way for thousands of claims against Cuba in US courts. — AFP