Editing Jesse Helms (section)

===Helms–Burton Act===
{{Main|Helms–Burton Act}}

Soon after becoming the chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Senate Foreign Relations Committee]], in February 1995, Helms announced that he wished to strengthen the spirit of the 1992 [[Torricelli Act]] with new legislation.<ref name="Roy 29">Roy (2000), p. 29</ref> Its companion sponsored through the [[United States House of Representatives|House]] by [[Dan Burton]] of [[Indiana]],<ref name="Roy 29" /> it would strengthen the [[United States embargo against Cuba|embargo against Cuba]]: further codifying the [[embargo]], instructing United States diplomats to vote in favor of sanctions on Cuba, stripping the [[President of the United States|President]] of the option of ending the embargo by [[Executive order (United States)|executive order]] until [[Fidel Castro|Fidel]] and [[Raúl Castro]] leave power and a prescribed course of transition is followed.<ref name="Congress and Cuba">{{cite journal |last=Lowenfeld |first=Andreas F. |date=July 1996 |title=Congress and Cuba: the Helms-Burton Act |journal=[[American Journal of International Law]] |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=419–34 |doi=10.2307/2204066 |publisher=American Society of International Law |jstor=2204066 |s2cid=146904252 }}</ref> The bill also, controversially explicitly overruling the [[Act of State Doctrine]],<ref name="Congress and Cuba" /> allowed foreign companies to be sued in American courts if, in dealings with the regime of [[Fidel Castro]], they acquired assets formerly owned by Americans.

Passing the House comfortably, the Senate was far more cautious, under pressure from the Clinton administration. The debate was [[filibuster]]ed, with a motion of [[cloture]] falling four votes short.<ref name="Congress and Cuba" /> Helms reintroduced the bill without Titles III and IV, which detailed the penalties on investors, and it passed by 74 to 24 on October 19, 1995.<ref>Roy (2000), p. 30</ref> A [[United States congressional conference committee|conference committee]] was scheduled to convene, but did not until February 28, 1996, by which time external events had taken over. On February 24, Cuba shot down two small [[Brothers to the Rescue]] planes piloted by anti-Castro Cuban-Americans. When the conference committee met, the tougher House version, with all four titles, won out on most substantive points.<ref name="Congress and Cuba" /> It was passed by the Senate 74–22 and the House 336–86, and President Clinton signed the [[Helms-Burton Act]] into law on March 12, 1996.<ref>Roy (2000), p. 31</ref> For years after its passing, Helms criticized the corporate interests that sought to lift the sanctions on Cuba, writing an article in 1999 for ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'', at whose publisher, the [[Council on Foreign Relations]], also drew Helms's ire for its softer approach to Cuba.<ref>Roy (2000), p. 192</ref>