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The European Union has condemned the United States after Donald Trump triggered a law that will increase sanctions against European countries doing business in Cuba. On Wednesday, the White House announced it would allow U.S citizens to sue foreign firms that do business deals involving property seized during the 1959 Cuban revolution. The new rule will likely open EU businesses up to lawsuits from America. It designed a backdrop of U.S-EU trade tensions and a hardening policy in Washington against the Caribbean state.

It is noteworthy that companies from Europe and other parts of the world have established growing business interests in Cuba in the decades since the end of the Cold War. But, the U.S has maintained a strict embargo on the country since the early 1960s. Brussels said that the move to trigger the sanctions from the United States is contrary to international law and a breach of a number of treaties signed by Trump’s predecessors. The EU’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and trade chief Cecilia Malmström said in a joint statement, “In the light of the United States Administration’s decision to not renew the waiver.

The European Union reiterates its strong opposition to the extraterritorial application of unilateral Cuba-related measures that are contrary to international law”. The statement further said, “This decision is also a breach of the United States’ commitments undertaken in the EU-US agreements of 1997 and 1998, which have been respected by both sides without interruption since then. The statement added, “In those agreements, the US committed to waiving Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and the EU, inter alia, suspended its case in the World Trade Organization against the US”.