On January 16th, 2019, the Department of State of the United States announced the decision to suspend the application of the Title III of the Helms-Burton Law for only 45 days, "to make a careful review ... in light of the national interests of the United States and efforts to accelerate a transition to democracy in Cuba, and it includes elements such as the brutal oppression of the regime against human rights and fundamental freedoms and their inexcusable support for the increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes of Venezuela and Nicaragua".

The government of President Donald Trump threatens to take a new step that would reinforce, in a dangerous way, the embargo against Cuba; it would violate flagrantly the International Law and would directly attack the sovereignty and interests of third countries.

Cuba rejects that threat in the most energetic, firm and categorical way. It is assumed as a hostile act of extreme arrogance and irresponsibility, at the time it repudiates the disrespectful and slanderous language of the public message of the Department of State.

The Helms-Burton Law came into force in 1996. It was designed to code and toughen the policy of economic, commercial and financial embargo officially imposed in 1962, aiming at subverting and overthrowing the government of Cuba and imposing a regime to the liking of the government of the U.S.

It consists of four titles and it is applied since its promulgation. It is characterized by its extreme extraterritorial influence, because it is a violation of the norms and principles of International Law, contravening the rules of trade and international economic relations and it is harmful to the sovereignty of other states, mainly by the application of its regulations against companies and individuals established in their territory.

It has been rejected by the international community almost unanimously in the United Nations, in specialized international organizations and in regional organizations such as the Community of Latin American States and the Caribbean and the African Union. Several countries have laws to deal with the extraterritorial effects of this law.

Among the central objectives of the Helms-Burton Law have been to obstruct the economic, commercial and financial relations of Cuba with third countries and affect their ability to attract direct investment of foreign capital for its development. For that purpose they dedicated expressly Titles III and IV of the law.


Title III establishes authorization for US nationals to bring before the courts of the United States lawsuits against all alien that "trafficked" with US properties that were nationalized in Cuba in the 1960s, in a legitimate process, as recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States, carried out by the Cuban government in full compliance with national law and the International law.

Among the most significant aberrations, this title extends this authorization to owners who were not citizens of the States United at the time of the nationalizations and whose supposed properties nobody has certified.

Under the regulations of the Helms-Burton Law itself, all US Presidents since 1996, including Trump in 2017 and 2018, they have made use consecutively of the executive power to suspend the application of Title III every six months to acknowledge that consists of the most gross and unacceptable aspect of this against the International Law and the sovereignty of other states. They also understand that its application would cause insurmountable obstacles for any perspective of resolving claims and compensation to the legitimate American owners.

On its part, the Provincial Popular Court of Havana, on November 2nd, 1999, declared the lawsuit against the Government of the United States for human damages and it sanctioned them to indemnify the Cuban people with the amount of $ 181 100 million dollars and, on May 5th, 2000, also for economic damages caused to Cuba it sentenced them to the value of $ 121,000 million Dollars.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated the goodwill of Cuba to find a solution to the claims and mutual compensation.

This decision that the government of the United States threatens to adopt, would imply that, contrary to what is established in International Law and the practice of international relations, foreign individuals and entities with legitimate businesses in Cuba, may face the threat to face unfounded claims lacking legitimacy before courts of the United States. It is known the motivated political behavior and venal of some courts in Florida, frequently used as a weapon against Cuba.
For our people, it means facing once again, firmly, conscious and forceful, the commitment of US imperialism to submit the destiny of the Cuban Nation to its dominion and tutelage.

If Title III is applied as established by this law and threatens the State Department announcement, any Cuban and every community of the country would see how they appear before courts of the United States demanded for ownership of the housing they occupy, the center where they work, the school their children attend, the polyclinic where they receive medical attention, the lands on which they build their neighborhoods; and they can verify the pretension to usurp us, Cubans, the country's wealth, infrastructure, lands crops, industries, mining resources, potential energy and the bases on which science and technology and services are provided to the population.

We should all remember the aberrant contents of the Bush Plan that describes and implements in detail the way in which Cuban families and the country would be deprived of practically everything.
For more than twenty years, the Helms Burton Law has guided the interventionist efforts from the anti-Cuban sectors in the United States to assault the Cuban nation and undermine its sovereignty. By virtue of its application, hundreds of millions of dollars have been approved to subvert the internal order in Cuba and innumerable measures have been arranged to try to provoke a change of regime. Its economic effect has involved a high cost for the country's development efforts and for the welfare of the population, with a humanitarian impact that is not greater thanks to the regime of social justice that prevails in Cuba.

The claim to fully apply Title III is promoted against the criterion of important governmental agencies of the United States and as a consequence of the power and influence they have achieved in the government, people whose political career has been marked by impotent resentment against Cuba and has relied on the use of lie and blackmail.
Most public opinion in the United States opposes consistently to the economic embargo, according to the most qualified surveys.

History records show with enough clarity that the policy of economic embargo and bilateral problems between Cuba and the United States has its origin in the fair nationalizations that, according to the law and with a legitimate right, carried out the revolutionary government. The military, economic and terrorist aggressions of the government of the United States began against Cuba before the fundamental acts of nationalization of American properties.

It is known that all nationalizations of foreign properties, including US, contemplated in law a commitment to compensation, which the government of the United States refused even to discuss, while it was assumed by the governments of the claimants from other countries, all of which enjoyed due compensation.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterates the postulates of the Law of Reaffirmation of Cuban Dignity and Sovereignty (Law No. 80), and emphasizes that the Helms-Burton Law is unlawful, unenforceable, and without value or legal effect. Consequently, any claim protected by natural or legal person will be considered void, whatever its citizenship or nationality.
The Government of Cuba reserves its right to respond timely to this new aggression.