U.S. Says Companies Abroad Must Follow U.S. Cuba Restrictions

[Judi Lynn]

U.S. Says Companies Abroad Must Follow U.S. Cuba Restrictions
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. companies are required to follow U.S. law that prohibits doing business with Cuba even when operating in a foreign country such as Mexico, a U.S. Treasury Department spokesman said.

``U.S. firms may not engage in economic activity with Cuba,'' or in activity that would benefit the Cuban government, said Tony Fratto, the Treasury's assistant secretary for public affairs, at A press conference in Washington. ``No matter where they operate they have to remain within the law.''

Fratto's comments contradict the Mexican Foreign Ministry's position that U.S. companies are required to abide by Mexican, not U.S., law when operating south of the border. The debate intensified after U.S. executives at White Plains, New York-based Starwood Hotel & Resorts Worldwide Inc. ordered employees at its Mexico City Sheraton hotel to force a group of Cubans who were meeting with U.S. business executives to leave the hotel on Feb. 3.

Mexico may fine the Sheraton hotel in Mexico City as much as $4.9 million pesos ($466,000) for enforcing a U.S. law in Mexico, said Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez in a statement last week.

``What we're sanctioning is the fact that the hotel applied extraterritorially a law that doesn't govern in Mexico,'' Derbez said in a statement last week.
(snip/...)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aJ1MkmtjvrrU&refer=latin_america

[Judi Lynn]

1. Mexico incident raises specter of colossus of the North

Posted on Mon, Feb. 13, 2006
Mexico incident raises specter of colossus of the North
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

The following editorial appeared in The Miami Herald on Friday, February 10, 2006:
---
The expulsion of Cuban officials from a U.S.-owned hotel in Mexico City at the behest of the U.S. Treasury Department is an incident straight out of the Three Stooges school of diplomacy. A friendly nation has been insulted, U.S. businesses in Mexico are alarmed, and Cuba can once again paint itself as the aggrieved party in its dispute with the United States.

With an arrogance that undoubtedly surprises no one in Mexico, U.S. Treasury officials demanded that managers of the Maria Isabel Sheraton expel a delegation of Cubans who were there to discuss oil drilling in Cuban waters with U.S. oilmen. The hotel acquiesced, fearing punishment under laws related to the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

The ensuing controversy was altogether predictable. The only thing that's not clear is what U.S. officials thought they had to gain by acting in such an overbearing and imperial manner.

Clearly, they did not like the fact of the meeting itself, but the threat against the hotel resulted only in the minor inconvenience of having to move the conference elsewhere. In Mexico, where this is seen as an infringement of national sovereignty, there are laws against this sort of discrimination, as well as a law neutralizing the foreign reach of the U.S. embargo.
(snip/...)

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/13860105.htm

[Mika]

2. Won't be long before Bush does not waive Title III of Helms-Burton..

.. that allows Cuban-Americans and US companies to use US courts to file for damages and settlement against any foreign companies doing business in Cuba for Cuba's use of expropriation and eminent domain on their abandoned properties after the 1959 revolution.

Then the enormous retaliations by families and companies that had properties expropriated by the US will start.

Bush is gonna start yet another shitstorm.

[HuffleClaw]

3. bullshit

us laws are in effect ONLY within its borders.

[Mika]

4. Not the Helms-Burton law. It is an extra territorial law.

Do a google search and you'll see.

[pinniped]

5. Fine, but according to MEXICAN law, they can fine their corporate asses.

I hope they do it to teach this assclowns a lesson.

* may have scribbled 'sovereign' on that silly used napkin, or maybe someone wrote it for him, which is the more likely scenario. Of course they didn't tell monkeyboy what it meant.

[EC]

6. could this lead to a land grab?

Where American Businesses own land, therefore that land is part of the United States? Like little side embassies?

[Mika]

7. It could lead to expropriations of properties owned by US companies..

.. that violate the laws of their host nation (in following the US's Helms-Burton law).

Canada, for example, has laws that forbid Canadian corporations and US corporations operating in Canada from adhering to Helms-Burton as it is a violation of Canada's sovereignty.

Mexico is claiming the same thing over this hotel expulsion of Cuban personnel at the energy conference.

[Ben Ceremos]

9. Sovereignty

is a word that * can't even define let alone understand. I predict American companies will re-register in friendlier countries, invalidating Helms-Burton and costing the US some revenue and control over the companies...Cuba has been beating the US at the embargo game simply by surviving and is currently beginning to recover from the "special period provisions". Oil exploration will open up Cuba to American investments, but the companies will need to help end this injustice. Today I will send more Euros to Cuba. Venceremos!!!

[Mika]

10. Agreed, Ben C.. The Bush cabal is always finding new ways to..

.. destroy the economy & American businesses by pushing them to either base offshore or to outsource offshore.

Cubaphobes are so busy pointing out some of the crumbling historic buildings in Havana that they don't notice that the US is crumbling around them.

US foreign policy is in shambles, domestic policy is in shambles also.

[BeHereNow]

8. Greedy bastards.

This crew of corporate thugs is unbelievable!
BHN

[ronnie624]

11. The neo cons, corporatists and fascists

are determined to enslave and exploit the Cuban people just as they have all of the Latin American nations at some time or other. With the global consolidation of corporate ownership they will probably achieve their goals sooner or later. Very sad.

I know many here have their irrational fears and hatred of Fidel Castro,
but I can't help but admire and respect his ability to lead his people from the bloody grasp of the exploiters.