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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Jan. 16, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Clinton has to step back on Helms-Burton

By Kristianna Tho'Mas

On Jan. 3, President Bill Clinton was forced to waive indefinitely the provision in the Helms-Burton Law that would allow companies to be sued for using property that had been expropriated during the Cuban Revolution.

Clinton signed the bill into law last year in the hope of strangling the Cuban Revolution economically. The particular provision he had to suspend imposes the law on other countries.

Mexico, Canada and the U.S.'s imperialist allies in Europe have been hostile to Helms-Burton, especially those provisions that infringe on their sovereignty. Canada's International Trade Minister, Arthur Eggleton, has accused the U.S. of holding a sword over the heads of other countries.

The other imperialist powers feel that the Clinton administration is trying to impose U.S. foreign policy on the rest of the world.

Following the overturn of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Cuba's largest trading partner at the time, Cuba has had to look elsewhere for trade and investment. With U.S. policy uniformly hostile to Cuba, Havana has looked to others to fill the gap, including capitalist rivals of the U.S.

And these countries, while not being friendly to Cuban socialism, have been open to the prospect of making money through investment in and trade with Cuba.

U.S. imperialism is isolated on the issue of blockading Cuba. In the United Nations General Assembly in late 1996, the vote was 137-3 against the U.S. on the issue of trade with Cuba.

While Cubans still suffer economic hardships because of the U.S. blockade, the Cuban economy has not only survived but has grown since the low point after the USSR collapsed.

The GNP of Cuba has grown by 3 percent in the last year, and this is in spite of the devastating hurricanes that swept the island in the last two years.

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