2 October, 1997
The St. Petersburg Times
Editorial

America's allies make trading curbs look silly

Sometimes it takes an old friend to put you straight, to tell you that you've been acting silly.

Even when that old friend is France and seems to be enjoying itself a bit too much.

What's happening, you may have heard, is that France openly defied the United States the other day by encouraging its biggest oil and gas company to sign a $ 2-billion production deal with Iran. And this, you may know as well, directly violates a U.S. law designed to punish anybody anywhere who does business with Iran or Libya - countries we accuse of supporting international terrorism.

But besides the irritating fact that the government in Paris is being a bit too gleeful in its defiance, what France is up to is similar to what Canada, Britain and Mexico were doing last year when they protested a U.S. law against certain kinds of business with Cuba.

Taken together, what these old friends are telling us is that America's laws apply only inside America's borders. And that if we keep trying to impose them elsewhere, we'll fail and look dumb in the process.

You'd think there wouldn't be much confusion about this. We don't go by French or British or Mexican law in our country, so how can we expect them to apply our laws in theirs?

It would be nice, of course, if France, Canada, Britain and Mexico were telling us where to get off for strictly altruistic reasons - to help an old friend see the light. But that isn't exactly what's happening here. Mainly, they're doing it so their companies can make a lot of money while ours are kept out of the action by U.S. Iaw.

But whatever their reasons, altruism or simple greed, our old friends are right this time.

The fact is that Congress and the White House came up with laws that are supposed to punish Iran, Libya and Cuba, but punish U.S. companies instead and get Washington into nasty arguments with its best friends.

However you slice it, that looks mighty silly - even dumb.

What brings all this up right now is the oil and gas production deal Iran signed last weekend with companies from France, Russia and Malaysia. The deal violates a law pushed through Congress by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., and signed by President Clinton.

As for Canada, Britain and Mexico, they have been complaining about a law designed to punish companies whose business in Cuba involves confiscated American properties.

The point to keep in mind here is that both these laws were passed by Congress and signed by Clinton at the height of campaigning for last year's congressional and presidential elections.

D'Amato wanted to show pro-lsrael voters in New York that he was tough on two of Israel's most dangerous enemies. Clinton wanted those same people voting for him in the presidential balloting and signed the Cuba sanctions bill as well to get Cuban-Americans in Florida on board too.

Both men knew exactly what they were up to even if a lot of the voters didn't. And if the laws they helped pass triggered nasty disputes with America's allies down the road . . . well they'd cross that bridge when they came to it - in any case, long after the ballots were counted.

Now, here we are catching all kinds of hell from our allies and the politicians act as if they had nothing to do with it. Clinton even has his aides come out and hint about imposing economic sanctions on France, America's oldest, if sometimes most annoying, ally.

And for their part, France and our other friends airily dismiss our worries over terrorism and threaten to haul us before the World Trade Organization.

The issue here isn't whether something should be done to curb international terrorism and the nations believed to be financing it. The issue is how to do it without hurting ourselves and our allies more than the people we're trying to punish.

If there's anything glaringly obvious in this, it's that laws passed to curry favor with this or that constituency at election time aren't doing the job.

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