U.S.-TRADE: Corporations Mount Anti-Sanctions Campaign

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 5 1997 (IPS) - In the opening shot of a long- anticipated campaign by big U.S. corporations, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is calling for the United States to abandon its widespread use of unilateral economic sanctions.

In a new, 30-page report, the NAM catalogues 61 U.S. laws and executive actions authorising unilateral sanctions that have been enacted in the past year against 35 countries. The report decries what it calls a growing trend in U.S. foreign policy and cites a range of measures — from full trade embargoes to bans on aid and export controls.

“Unilateral sanctions are little more than postage stamps we use to send messages to other countries at the cost of thousands of American jobs,” says NAM president, Jerry Jasinowski.

“The fact is, unilateral sanctions simply don’t work,” according to Tracy O’Rourke, chairman of Varian Associates, a hi- tech California-based manufacturing firm.

The report, ‘A Catalog of New U.S. Unilateral Economic Sanctions for Foreign Policy Purposes, 1993-1996,’ marks the beginning of a major campaign by business executives and associations who say they are losing valuable orders to overseas rivals who are not constrained by their governments’ foreign policy.

“If we are serious about competing in the global marketplace, we need to be seen as a reliable trading partner,” says O’Rourke. “Unilateral trade sanctions give American businesses the stigma of being unreliable.”

Led by NAM and the new, anti-sanctions coalition, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), the corporations have been galvanised into action by several recent developments which they say point to an alarming trend.

The first was passage just one year ago of the ‘Helms-Burton’ law which tightens and extends the 35-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Under that law, foreign companies which gain an interest in property expropriated by the Cuban government can be sued for damages in U.S. courts by former owners of that property.

The law has angered Canadian, European, and other governments which say that its extraterritorial reach violates global trade rules. While most U.S. companies are not interested in trade with Cuba, the new report notes that the law has “caused a whole new set of commercial problems” and may subject U.S. companies to retaliation.

In a similar action, both President Bill Clinton and Congress took action in 1995 and 1996 to ban bilateral trade with Libya and Iran and penalise foreign companies which sign major contracts with either country for exploration or exploitation of their energy resources. This, too, prompted howls from Washington’s European allies, but also angered U.S. companies which were among Iran’s most important trading partners until just two years ago.

A third development which annoys businesses here is the proliferation of local and state “selective-purchasing” laws, directed primarily against Burma, Nigeria, and, most recently, Indonesia. These laws, which are not covered by the new report, ban local governments from contracting with companies doing business in the target country and were especially effective in í[KVï+kWKk..Y..].YHXV,-kñ*+- ñPû.¡,XH2]9Z7