The US administration's decision to allow, as from Thursday 2 May, legal suits in the United States against European and Canadian companies operating in Cuba "can only lead to an unnecessary spiral of legal actions", warned the European Union and Canada on Wednesday 17 April (see EUROPE 12229/21).
With regard to the EU and Ottawa, the activation of Chapter III of the Helms-Burton Act is contrary to international law. The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, and the European Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmström, also jointly stressed that it calls into question the commitments made by the United States in the 1997 and 1998 agreements with the EU, as a result of which US law was not applied and the EU suspended its complaint to the WTO.
The EU and Canada say they are "determined" to act together, using all means at their disposal, to protect the interests of their respective companies within the WTO framework and "by prohibiting the implementation or recognition of foreign judgments based on Chapter III" of the Helms-Burton Act. It was also noted that EU rules and Canadian law authorise European or Canadian companies, who would be sentenced in the United States, to claim damages by suing the American plaintiffs in European or Canadian courts.
The EU-Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement has been in force since November 2017 (see EUROPE 11823/7).
The decision of the Trump administration, taken on the anniversary of the fiasco of the US landing in the Bay of Pigs, is also intended to pile pressure on the Cuban government, which supports the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela, the legitimacy of which the United States does not recognise.
It joins a now substantial list of trade disputes between the EU and the United States. On the same day, the European Commission unveiled a list of retaliatory pricing measures in respect of the Airbus/Boeing case (see other news). Tariff retaliations have already been in place in the EU since June 2018, when Washington decided to overtax imports of steel and aluminium from the EU (see EUROPE 12045/20).
However, the EU wants to negotiate a limited trade agreement with Member States in order to avoid new tariffs, particularly on imports of European cars. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)