Trump administration to let Americans sue Cuban companies

By: Bob F.

The Trump administration will let Americans file lawsuits in US courts against foreign companies in Cuba that use properties seized from Cuban Americans and other US citizens during the 1959 communist revolution.

The move could expose American, European and Canadian companies to legal action, dealing a blow to Cuba’s efforts to attract more foreign investment.

It is also another sign of Washington’s efforts to punish Havana over its support for Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton will explain the administration’s decision in Miami on Wednesday, and will also announce new sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, an administration official said.

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act gave Americans the right to sue companies profiting from properties confiscated by Cuba.

But every US president since Bill Clinton has suspended the key clause because of fears of alienating allies and complicating relations with Cuba.

The administration official said going forward, there will be no more waivers.

The lifting of the ban could allow billions of dollars in legal claims to move forward and likely antagonize Canada and America’s European partners, whose companies have significant business holdings in Cuba.

It could also affect some US companies that began investing in the island, since former President Obama began a process of normalizing relations between the two countries from the end of 2014.

US-Cuban relations have tanked since Trump became president and rolled back the detente initiated by Obama and reverted to using Cold War rhetoric.

Just last week, the Trump administration scrapped a historic agreement between Major League Baseball and the Cuban Baseball Federation that would have allowed Cuban players to sign with US teams without needing to defect.

The existing deal will not be allowed to go forward because it was based on an erroneous ruling by the former Obama administration that the Cuban Baseball Federation was not part of Cuba’s Communist government, a senior US official said.

The move essentially overturns an agreement reached between MLB and the Cuban federation in December after three years of negotiation under which Cuban players would have had a safe, legal path to playing professionally in the States.

In the past, some Cuban stars have undertaken risky escapes, including being smuggled off the island in speedboats.

“The agreement with #MLB seeks to stop the trafficking of human beings, encourage cooperation and raise the level of baseball,” the Cuban Baseball Federation said on Twitter.

“Any contrary idea is false news. Attacks with political motivation against the agreement achieved harm the athletes, their families and the fans.”