The Clinton administration, in turn, promised to seek congressional permission to waive a requirement that strips foreigners of their U.S. visas if they invest in such Cuban properties.
The administration also pledged to continue suspending a Helms-Burton provision that would allow property owners to sue foreigners in U.S. courts.
The tentative agreement, struck after lengthy negotiations between Undersecretary of Commerce Stuart Eizenstat and Sir Leon Brittan, the trade commissioner for the European Union, averted a showdown scheduled for Monday, when the EU planned to file its argument before the World Trade Organization.
In remarks on Cuba Friday, President Clinton said he continues to support Helms-Burton. He was against the measure at first but embraced it after Cuba shot down two unarmed civilian planes last year, killing four pilots of the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
``The Congress was outraged. They passed the Helms-Burton law. And I signed it, regretfully, but not reluctantly,'' Clinton told a conference of newspaper editors. ``Our policy toward Cuba, therefore, today is one that was dictated by Cuba, not by the United States. And until I see some indication of willingness to change, it's going to be very difficult to persuade me to change our policy.''
Dismissing comparisons of Washington's eagerness to recognize and trade with repressive governments in Asia, Clinton added: ``I would have a different attitude toward China or Vietnam or North Korea if they murdered any Americans. And I would hope you would want me to have a different attitude toward them if they did.''
Friday's deal also laid the groundwork for the United States and Europe to use Cuba as a precedent toward establishing global standards for resolving disputes between property claimants and foreign investors.
``This understanding serves a number of important U.S. interests,'' Eizenstat told a news conference, emphasizing Europe's agreement to adopt binding rules to ``inhibit and deter'' new investment in illegally confiscated property.
``The agreement,'' Eizenstat added, ``avoids placing our foreign policy interests before the WTO, an organization designed to facilitate trade, not arbitrate foreign policy disputes. [And] it protects existing and future property claims in Cuba by U.S. citizens.''
In Brussels, EU officials said Brittan has yet to sell the agreement to the 15 member states, but praised it as a Solomonic solution to a tough dispute that once threatened to disrupt the 2-year-old World Trade Organization. The United States, an enthusiastic backer of the organization, refused to recognize its jurisdiction in this case.
Brittan who had long spearheaded Europe's decision to stand up to the Americans over Helms-Burton, sought to portray Friday's agreement as a diplomatic triumph, even as aides acknowledged concessions.
``We have reached a proposed settlement which I believe will allow us to suspend the WTO [dispute] panel,'' Brittan said. ``It charts a path toward a longer-term solution through amendment of the Helms-Burton Act and a dialogue on our broader disagreement over extraterritoriality.''
Eizenstat stressed Friday that the United States had not committed itself to waiving the visa sanction provision, known as Title IV, and in any event would not ask Congress to take any action until Europe has taken convincing steps to curb investment in disputed properties.
About a dozen executives and their family members from two foreign companies -- the Sherritt mining firm of Canada and Grupo Domos telecommunications company of Mexico -- have lost their U.S. visas under Title IV. So far, no European company has been punished under the provision.
Suspicions about the deal
``This is a surrender by the administration,'' said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican. ``The administration had assured us that it would not seek to further weaken Helms-Burton and it has now reneged on that agreement. Let no one be fooled by this agreement.''
Other supporters of Helms-Burton -- a sweeping bill that codified the U.S. trade ban into law and mandated a plan for U.S. aid to a transition government in Cuba -- expressed cautious optimism that the administration had received the better part of the deal. And only Congress, they noted, can ever amend the law.
Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the law's principal author, gave his blessing to Eizenstat's talks, said spokesman Marc Thiessen. But Helms in no way ``agreed to the dilution of the Helms-Burton bill,'' Thiessen said, merely that he would consider an amendment to waive sanctions if the Europeans police themselves.
``If essentially what the European Union is saying to us is, `We recognize the principle that we shouldn't traffic in stolen property and are going to put an end to it,' then we'd consider some action over here,'' Thiessen said.
Foundation is `gratified'
``We are gratified that after all the screaming and shouting, this principle has been ratified as the starting point of these negotiations,'' Cardenas said.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald