What does Office Max have to do with Cuba? Helms-Burton and Washington’s long war against the Cuban Revolution – Liberation News

Between the intense threats from Washington and its corporate media, a bizarre legal dispute in U.S. courts targeting the sovereign nation of Cuba has resurfaced: U.S. retailer Office Depot currently holds the largest single claim in the U.S. court system for compensation related to Cuban assets nationalized in the early years of the revolution. 

This case represents the cruel absurdity of U.S. policy toward Cuba since the revolution in 1959. Why does an office supplies company founded in 1986 — more than a quarter-century after the Cuban Revolution took power — that has never conducted business in Cuba, claim $267,586,413.62 in value related to the former Cuban Electric Company? Any reasonable person would rightly have questions.

Failed capitalist management of Cuban utilities

Office Depot found the opportunity to steal Cuban nationalized assets in 2013 when it acquired OfficeMax. OfficeMax had previously inherited interests from the timber company Boise Cascade, which itself had an ownership stake in the Cuban Electric Company — a poorly named company as there was in reality nothing Cuban about this enterprise.

Prior to the revolution, the Cuban Electric Company was the foreign-owned monopolist power company in Cuba. In many ways it was simply the consolidated entity of the American & Foreign Power Company, which itself was a subsidiary of Electric Bond and Share Company (Ebasco). Ebasco itself was General Electric’s holding firm of global utility providers.

The imperialist legacy of General Electric on the utilities of Cuba created many crises for the Cuban people. General Gerardo Machado, a capitalist that sold his local power company to Ebasco in 1922, was then rewarded by GE which funded his 1924 presidential campaign to the tune of USD $500,000, an amount equating nearly USD $10 million adjusted for today’s market. 

Once the presidential palace was secured, Machado led a campaign of bribery and political intimidation serving as a U.S.-backed dictator during the period of the Great Depression. Unemployment soared as sugar prices collapsed, leading to uprisings against Machado by students, armed groups, and labor. A general strike was called in July 1933, creating a deep crisis for Machado. By August 9th, the strike had expanded across the island, and days later Machado fled to the Bahamas, removed from power by the organized Cuban people.

On New Year’s Day in 1959, the July 26th Movement, led by Fidel Castro, defeated the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Following this victory, the revolutionary government implemented sweeping popular nationalizations of U.S. assets, intended to end foreign control of Cuba’s wealth and resources. The Cuban Electric Company was nationalized on August 6, 1959, which resulted in power rates for rural areas being cut in half.

The Supreme Court and Helms-Burton Act

67 years have passed since the Cuban Revolution began and the capitalist class is only accelerating their mission to rob the Cuban people of its gains. Alongside threats of military intervention and Trump’s comments that he wants to “take” Cuba, this year the Supreme Court agreed to hear claims relating to U.S. corporate assets seized by the revolution. Litigating these cases is a “right” the Supreme Court and U.S. legal system gave itself and carries little international validity.

In 1996 Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which allowed legal recourse to be taken against both U.S. and non-U.S. companies for doing business in Cuba. Helms-Burton includes Title III, which allows U.S. nationals to sue any U.S. or foreign entity that engages in “trafficking” with property seized by the Cuban Revolution.

The act was seen at the time as extreme, and was even criticized by leading voices of conservative thought at the time. Claude Barfield, Senior Fellow of the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, described Clinton’s enactment of Helms-Burton as nothing but “political cowardice”, saying that the White House was “caving in to Cuban exile demands in order to sway Florida voters during the 1996 presidential campaign.”

The signing of the law by Clinton even sparked a division between the North Atlantic capitalist powers. The European Union reacted to this expansion of U.S. legal jurisdiction by challenging it at the World Trade Organization, denouncing the extraterritorial reach of Helms-Burton’s mandate. In the past, the Cuban government settled debts incurred through negotiated settlements, in the cases of certain European Union countries. 

Among many representing the neoliberal status quo, the enactment of Helms-Burton was a clear mistake that only set the United States backwards diplomatically, even among close allies. From Clinton to Obama, each White House administration extended the suspension of Title III, consciously aware of the ludicrous assertion of authority and legal chaos it presents. While remaining codified into law, Title III had never been enforced. However, in his own audacious fashion, Donald Trump broke with this policy of Title III suspension in his first term.

Title III unleashed

Two cases have already reached the docket of the Supreme Court this year: Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación Cimex, S.A. and Havana Docks Corporation v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. Both cases were offered a hearing on the same day.

The fact that the Supreme Court is taking up Helms-Burton cases, aside from the relatively narrow legal precedent they would offer, only highlights the main utility in deciding these cases: to accelerate the full-scale assault on the Cuban Revolution. “The Supreme Court is doing about seventy cases a year,” said D.C.-based attorney Robert Muse to the Lever. “The fact that it would devote two places on the docket to litigation arising under a statute that’s only produced about 50 cases in total — and where there’s no circuit split — is extraordinary.” 

In late May 2026 the Supreme Court ruled in the favor of the Havana Docks corporation. In a shocking 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the claimant, allowing U.S. cruise lines to be held liable for “trafficking” confiscated Cuban property. 

The boldness in this Havana Docks Corporation, given a 99-year lease in 1928, was not lost on at least one Justice. Justice Elena Kagan, as the sole dissenting justice on the court, admitted that the Havana docks belonged to the Cuban government all along. “What Havana Docks owned was only a property interest allowing it to use those docks for a specified time. And that time-limited interest expired in 2004—more than a decade before the cruise lines ever used the docks.”

This attempt to turn the assets of Cuba’s society — under people’s control for more than six decades — should not let one get lost in the truth of the matter. The Cuban Revolution took action against foreign ownership of land and enterprises to correct a historical injustice against its people. Billions in wealth for Wall Street and U.S. monopolists were made on the backs of the Cuban people. The fields, the mines, the beaches, and the workers of Cuba were exploited for the U.S. conglomerates such as the United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, and Coca-Cola. Expropriation was a project of curing the symptoms of the disease that is U.S. imperialism.

At the time of writing the Exxon case remains pending, but the heavily politicized ruling relating to Havana’s docks spells concern. The Supreme Court, as a last line of defense for the ruling class, is transparently joining the entire U.S. bourgeoisie’s effort in tearing apart the Cuban Revolution at a fever pitch. 

These attacks from the U.S. billionaire class demand the deepening of solidarity actions with Cuba by working people in the United States — and should have every person in the U.S. wondering why the billionaires have more right to the lands and resources of this country than they do.