Cuba: Property Rights and Freedom

Exxon’s victory Tuesday at the Supreme Court in its restitution case against communist Cuba helps pave the way for an overdue legal vindication. Will the ruling lead to any compensation for the property stolen by the Fidelistas? Critics may deem that an achievement on a par with Moses striking with his staff the dry rock at Horeb. Yet, given the billions of dollars owed by Cuba for the assets it seized, the question nags. The moment has certainly been a long time coming. The standoff began during the Eisenhower administration when Fidel Castro’s Marxist movement took over the Cuban government. Among the tyrant’s first moves were dissolving the island’s legislature and rewriting the constitution to allow the confiscation of property without trial — and to revive the death penalty. It was a reminder that political freedom’s fate is inseparable from economic liberty. Armed with these new powers, Castro in 1959 launched a wave of executions that an American senator denounced as a “blood bath.” Yet to admiring crowds at Havana, Castro crowed “this is democracy.” So-called agrarian reform seized land while offering empty promises of compensation. In 1960 Castro announced the seizure of American corporate assets across the island, including sugar mills, telephone and electric companies, and oil refineries.The communist regime staged a funeral in which “men served as pallbearers for empty coffins” standing in for “the remains of Esso, Shell, United Fruit,” and other entities, historian Ada Ferrer writes. A crowd danced as the coffins were thrown into the sea. Later, every American bank branch in Cuba was seized, followed by distilleries, stores, casinos, hotels, and drug stores. “There is a limit to what the United States in self respect can endure,” Eisenhower said.Not until 1996, though, did Congress, in Helms-Burton, known as the Libertad Act, extend a legal right for Americans whose property was seized to sue for compensation. The law, Justice Brett Kavanaugh writes for a majority of the high court, offers a chance to hold accountable the “Cuban agencies and instrumentalities that possess, use, or otherwise traffic in the confiscated property.” The law rejects Cuba’s claim of immunity as a sovereign state.There are some $9 billion, including accumulated interest, in American claims against Cuba. The current legal pressure against the Havana regime follows President Trump’s decision in 2019 to allow compensation suits to be filed. Previous presidents had agreed to suspend that right under Helms-Burton, in part to placate American allies whose companies were doing business in Cuba and benefiting from the use of the confiscated American assets.Exxon jumped at the chance to file suit, seeking compensation from Cuban oil companies that use seized American property. Lower federal courts ruled against Exxon’s claims, but Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling revives the oil giant’s case. In May, in a similar case, the Nine ruled for an American company, Havana Docks Corporation, that seeks compensation from Royal Caribbean Cruises. The cruise line is using Havana Docks’s stolen facilities at the Cuban capital.What are the prospects of Americans getting compensated for their stolen property? So-called experts are quick to suggest that Cuba lacks for the funds to pay for what the regime stole. Havana has long sought to evade responsibility by blaming America for imposing an embargo against the island. Yet Cuba’s vast post-communist economic potential suggests that the money could eventually emerge to cover the American claims. The high court rulings in favor of corporations like Exxon suggest, too, an avenue for leverage by America against the Havana regime. This cudgel, one imagines, is not one that Mr. Trump will want to cede in any rush to revive relations with Havana. At a time when Marxism is ascendant on America’s left, honoring the Cuban restitution claims would affirm that the private ownership of property is an inalienable right that no government can abrogate.

Cuba: Property Rights and Freedom

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