Us House Move To Reinforce Helms-Burton Law

The US House of Representatives was poised to pass a measure to reinforce the Helms-Burton anti-Cuba law. If it passes the Senate, then the truce between the US and the EU, which averted a damaging trade dispute over Helms-Burton in April, will be in danger of coming apart.

The House was due to vote on Tuesday on the move, which would put pressure on the State Department to bar more foreign executives of companies investing in Cuba from entering the US. So far the US has only barred executives from two companies, one Mexican and one Canadian.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American from Florida, said she had introduced the new measure to show the EU that Congress would not let President Bill Clintons administration ease the Helms-Burton legislation. The timing, of course, is very provocative, said Erica Mann, a member of the European Parliament responsible for US relations.

 

The EU suspended its complaint against Helms-Burton in the World Trade Organisation after the US and the EU agreed to seek a bilateral agreement to constrain companies from trafficking in illegally expropriated foreign assets in Cuba.

The ball is rather in the American court, a Europen Commission official said on Tuesday. There are ways for the US government to defuse this. We have yet to get indications that there are determinations against European companies in the pipeline. That would clearly endanger the agreement. We might reopen the WTO case. That should act as a deterrent. Representatives of Sir Leon Brittan, the EU trade commissioner, and Stuart Eizenstat, US under-secretary of state, are due to meet next week for talks following up the April accord.

If the US and EU reach a bilateral agreement, the Clinton administration has promised to ask Congress to weaken the part of the Helms-Burton act which requires the US to deny entry visas to executives, directors and their families, and shareholders of foreign companies investing in Cuba.

Canada and Jamaica have defied US pressure and strengthened economic ties with Cuba, as has Stet, the Italian telecommunications company.

In April, France, one of Cubas biggest EU trading partners, signed a bilateral investment protection accord with Cuba and sent a business delegation which pledged to boost investments in the islands sugar, electricity generation and food processing sectors.

Ros-Lehtinens measure is embedded in the State Department authorisation act, making it more difficult for Clinton to veto it. The measure would require the State Department to report every three months to Congress on the operation of the business visa sanctions programme.