Cuba embargo law set to expire -- but it doesn't mean much

Posted on Wednesday, 09.02.09
Cuba embargo law set to expire -- but it doesn't mean much
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@MiamiHerald.com

On Sept. 14, the law used to impose the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba will
expire unless President Barack Obama signs an extension.

Embargo supporters need not worry, however.

All U.S. presidents since the mid-1970s have signed one-year extensions
of the the law, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWTEA). And Obama is
expected to do the same, because even without it, the Helms-Burton law
would keep the sanctions in place.

But the fact that Amnesty International on Monday urged Obama to let
TWTEA expire underlined the legal maneuvering underway as opponents and
supporters of the embargo strategize over the best way to undermine or
preserve the U.S. sanctions against the island.

Allowing TWTEA to expire would be ``a gesture without meaning,'' said
Washington attorney Robert Muse, considered a top expert on the history
and legal structure behind the embargo.

Adopted in 1917, TWTEA for many years was applied to ``enemy countries''
after a formal U.S. declaration of war, Muse said. In 1952, it was used
to sanction North Korea under a declaration of an ``international
emergency.'' And in 1963, President John F. Kennedy used TWTEA to apply
trade sanctions against Cuba.

But in the 1970s, TWTEA was ``essentially sunsetted'' -- allowed to
expire, and no new sanctions could be imposed under its authority, Muse
added. Later sanctions, such as those against Iraq after it invaded
Kuwait, were enabled by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act
approved in the mid-1970s.

Cuba was grandfathered under TWTEA at the time -- the sanctions against
the island are currently the only ones covered by the act -- and every
president since then has signed one-year extensions, declaring TWTEA ``a
matter of national security interest,'' Muse added.

So what would happen if Obama does not extend the act?

Pretty much nothing, said Muse, because the 1996 measure known as
Helms-Burton essentially turned the embargo into law and set conditions
for lifting the sanctions that amount to having a democratically elected
government in power in Havana.

``Yes, Obama could not sign the [TWTEA] extension and in theory the
embargo is over,'' Muse said in a telephone interview. ``But it wouldn't
mean anything. And he would win no political points because it wouldn't
change anything.''

Cuba embargo law set to expire -- but it doesn't mean much - This Week
in Cuba - MiamiHerald.com (2 September 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/1264/story/1214329.html