Lawmaker Calls for More Global Magnitsky Sanctions on Cuba
The U.S. government should dramatically increase the number of Cuban officials who are sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said Dec. 11.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
“There are only three Cubans that are on the Global Magnitsky" list, Smith said while chairing a Cuba hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights. “There should be a large number of abusers that are on that list,” which is something the lawmaker hopes the incoming Trump administration will address.
Smith also said he plans to re-introduce his Cuban Human Rights Act of 2015, which called for maintaining sanctions and the longtime U.S. embargo against the Cuban government as long as it continues to violate the human rights of its population. He said he is consulting with former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., "to get her inputs as to what provisions it ought to contain."
During the hearing, Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch, argued that the embargo has failed to change Cuba's repressive behavior and should be replaced with targeted sanctions against officials responsible for human rights violations.
"The embargo and the [first Trump administration's] state sponsor of terrorism determination have provided the Cuban government with an alleged excuse for its problems, a supposed pretext for its abuses, and a way to garner sympathy abroad with governments that might otherwise have been willing to condemn the country’s repressive practices more vocally," Pappier said.
Maria Werlau, executive director of the Free Society Project, also known as Cuba Archive, testified that while she agrees with Pappier that imposing multilateral sanctions against Cuba would be more effective than the U.S. acting alone, other countries have shown little interest in punishing Havana. “Yes, I believe, of course, multilateral sanctions would be best, but the world ignores Cuba,” she said.
Werlau said the embargo would be more effective if it were fully enforced. “Many U.S. laws have been eroded by executive mandate or ignored,” she said.