Javier Lopez has spent hundreds of hours interviewing Cuban exiles and meticulously building cases for families who lost property after the 1959 revolution. He’s pored over obscure legal papers, Spanish-language newspaper articles and, in one case, a century-old parchment deed. Then, he stashed the suits in his computer: No court would hear them, and he couldn’t bill a cent.
On Thursday, the cases can come out again.
For the first time, the Trump administration will allow lawsuits in U.S. courts against firms operating on seized Cuban property, including multinational corporations based in Canada and Europe, which accounts for the island’s biggest source of foreign investment. In many cases, the companies entered the market decades after the land was expropriated, but they could be held accountable all the same.
Some Cuba watchers are projecting a flurry of legal activity, while foreign governments and corporations are preparing to defend billions in assets. The European Union and Canadian governments have jointly warned that suits could prompt them to complain to the World Trade Organisation. Among potential lawsuit targets are Swiss food company Nestle SA; Canadian miner Sherritt International Corp.; and Spanish hoteliers NH Hotel Group SA and Melia Hotels International SA, according to a list from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Lopez, 39, has been waiting for this day for the better part of the past decade.
“Vindicated is certainly one of the things that I feel," he said from his Coral Gables, Florida, office, decorated with paintings depicting the Cuban diaspora experience, his collection of busts of the Cuban poet Jose Marti, and his cigar humidor. (He prefers Romeo y Julieta, a brand nationalized by Cuba but later replicated in exile.)
“It’s just intensely personal, having come from a Cuban family, political prisoners," said Lopez, whose great uncle Mario Chanes de Armas was held about three decades in one of Castro’s prisons.
Unused Weapon
Indeed, thousands of families have stories of assets lost when they fled under Castro’s threats. The ability to sue might provide them a semblance of long-awaited justice. But there could be collateral damage to key U.S. relationships: The Helms-Burton Act of 1996 created the legal recourse. Yet until Trump, every president has delayed implementation of the lawsuit provision, due in large part to concerns that the cases would bedevil global corporations and leave the U.S. at odds with allies.
The current administration appears to have decided it’s worth the risk. As some progressive Democrats embrace the term socialism, Trump has sought to make an example of Cuba during speeches in Florida, America’s biggest swing state and the seat of the island nation’s exile community.
The administration is blaming Cuba for backing Venezuela’s autocratic President Nicolas Maduro and thwarting opposition leader Juan Guaido’s efforts to unseat him. Trump suggests Cuba props up Maduro amid food and medicine shortages, rigged elections and growing discontent in the streets. He tweeted Tuesday that he may implement a "full and complete" embargo on Cuba, beyond what’s already in place, in retaliation for its military presence in Venezuela.