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LatinNews Daily - 21 January 2019

US reviewing suspension of Helms-Burton Act

Cuba: On 16 January, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo announced that he was reviewing whether to move forward on the Helms-Burton Act – a decision that would allow Cuban exiles to sue both private companies and the Cuba state itself for profiting on properties nationalised after the 1959 revolution. US administrations have routinely used their authority to delay implementation of the act every six months, because of its potential to alienate US allies - but Pompeo said he was issuing a suspension for only 45 days starting from 1 February. The statement released by the US Department of State on 16 January justified this extension, stating it will allow it to “conduct a careful review of the right to bring action under Title III in light of the national interests of the US and efforts to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba and include factors such as the Cuban regime’s brutal oppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms and its indefensible support for increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua”. If US President Donald Trump allows that clause to take effect, it would imply a dramatic tightening of the US’s economic embargo on Cuba. Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez, reacted to the statement on Twitter, describing it as “Political blackmail and irresponsible hostility to strengthen the blockade against Cuba”. On 17 January, the Cuban state’s mouthpiece Granma described the Helms-Burton Act as “unlawful, unenforceable and…void of any value of legal effect. Consequently, any claim filed under this law by a natural or juridical person, regardless of their citizenship or nationality, will be rendered null”.

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