Canada, Mexico Lash Out at U.S. Law on Cuba

Canada and Mexico on Monday announced steps escalating their opposition to new U.S. measures against Cuba, while Washington vowed to press ahead with the controversial legislation.

In Washington, the State Department formally released guidelines on enforcing a key part of the Helms-Burton law, named after its main Republican backers in Congress and aimed at tightening the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said that “by the end of the summer” the U.S. government will be in a position to invoke penalties against those violating the law, which punishes individuals and companies benefiting from property expropriated from Americans decades ago.

Canada and Mexico vowed to take the matter to a ministerial commission under the North American Free Trade Agreement, a prelude to a request for a NAFTA dispute settlement panel.

Canada went a step further Monday, unveiling its own legislation in retaliation.

Helms-Burton “sets a dangerous precedent by attempting to tell nations with whom they can trade and maintain commercial links,” Canadian International Trade Minister Art Eggleton said.

Ottawa’s proposed legislation would allow Canadians to counter-sue in Canadian courts to recover damages awarded by U.S. courts under Helms-Burton.

“It’s a question that the United States has a quarrel with Cuba. It takes aim at its foe, but then it shoots its friends,” Eggleton said.

A senior Cuban official welcomed Canada’s proposal.

“I think this is very good. It is yet another sign of world rejection of the law, a law that is increasingly showing itself to be illegal,” Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Isabel Allende, said in Havana.

The legislation would also allow Canada to issue “blocking” orders declaring that judgments handed down under any objectionable foreign law would not be enforced or recognized in Canada.