U.S. Allies Are Up in Arms Over Law on Cuba Trade

So many American allies are furious about a new U.S. law designed to punish some foreign companies operating in Cuba that the State Department spokesman, in an unusual display of undiplomatic petulance, lectured them this week “to just sit back and cool it” and end “the public bickering.”

But nothing has cooled, and the tenor of the debate remains shrill over legislation passed by Congress in March to punish foreign companies that do business in Cuba on property still claimed by American citizens.

The law, introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), allows Cuban exiles to sue such companies in U.S. federal courts and prohibits offending corporate officers and their wives from entering the United States. The law takes effect in August.

In response, Canada, Mexico and European governments have already taken or are planning to take steps that could lead to retaliation against the United States.

And the Organization of American States--a venue that has often condemned Cuba nearly unanimously at the behest of the United States--issued a stinging, near-unanimous rebuke to the U.S., asking a special committee to rule on whether the U.S. law violates international law. Only the United States voted against the move at the meeting in Panama on Tuesday.

It was not a quiet dissent. U.S. Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt accused the other ambassadors of “diplomatic cowardice” for questioning a U.S. domestic law, while lacking “the moral and political courage to denounce a totalitarian dictatorship” in Cuba.

After the OAS vote, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters: “I would remind . . . all member states of the OAS that Helms-Burton is the law of the land, that the administration has a . . . constitutional responsibility to implement the law of the land. . . .

“The countries that are teeing off on us,” he went on, “ought to just sit back and cool it and understand that we’re going to implement this law. And we ought to have very good, private, constructive conversations about this, but let’s end the public bickering about it. We’re not interested in that.”

The critics contend that the United States has no right to draw them into the cross-fire with Cuba.

“The U.S. is taking aim at its foe and shooting its friends,” Art Eggleton, the Canadian minister of international trade, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

The Helms-Burton Act had been opposed by the White House. But after the shooting down of two private Cuban exile planes by the Cuban air force on Feb. 24, President Clinton changed his mind and accepted the bill with some alterations. The signing of the bill was a popular act with the Cuban American community in Miami, and the White House appears not to want to antagonize these voters in an election year by any laggard implementation.

The act is regarded by many foreign governments as blatant interference in their internal affairs.

“While the United States government is entitled to decide whether its citizens will trade and do business in Cuba, it does not have the right to decide if Canadian citizens will,” Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Raymond Chretien, a nephew of the Canadian prime minister, told the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on Monday.

European diplomats also contend that the Helms-Burton Act is little more than a secondary boycott, which the United States long opposed when applied by Arab nations against Israel. For more than 30 years, the Arabs refused to buy goods or allow investments from any company that did business with Israel.

Although there is much talk of retaliation, it is not yet clear what form it may take. Canadian officials are discussing the possibility of a law that would punish any Canadian firm that caves in to the Helms-Burton Act and stops doing business in Cuba.

Eggleton said Canada has already filed a protest under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Mexico is expected to lodge a similar protest.

French and British diplomats have said they will take the issue to the new World Trade Organization, which has the power to impose sanctions on the United States. “Secondary boycotts are directly against WTO rules,” a French diplomat said recently.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this report.