Three members of the US House of Representatives – Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush and Summer L. Lee – have asked the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to archive . In a letter addressed to the president of said agency, Daniel B. Maffei, the three congresswomen, who are part of the left wing of the Democratic Party, assure that the investigation is “a reckless insult to our allies in Spain, who have only sought to reinforce in good faith its policy of national sovereignty and uphold international law, including treaties to prevent genocide. It is quite regrettable that the United States is violating these same obligations and its domestic laws by sending these weapons,” they add.
The letter, dated December 20, emphasizes that the refusals to allow the stopover of three ships with weapons for Israel in the ports of Algeciras (Cádiz) and Cartagena (Murcia) in recent months are “legitimate decisions taken by a sovereign State to ensure compliance with human rights and humanitarian law,” and that “Spain has the right to make such humanitarian decisions without interference, sanctions or economic penalties from its supposed ally the United States.” After highlighting that the weapons supplied by Washington to Israel have caused the death of 45,105 people in Gaza, including 17,492 children, they warn that “no United States agency should sanction or penalize” its allies “for reinforcing international law that The United States has refused to defend.” The text concludes by urging the director of the FMC to “immediately suspend and withdraw said investigation.”
Rashida Tlaid is a congresswoman from Michigan of Palestinian origin; Cori Bush and Summer L. Lee are congresswomen from Missouri and Pennsylvania, both African-Americans.
The United States should not be sanctioning our allies for enforcing the international law that our government has refused to uphold. I led a letter calling on the Federal Maritime Commission to suspend its investigation into Spain’s Arms Embargo against the Israeli government.
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida)
The arguments of the three signatories of the letter are that it is a sovereign decision of the Spanish Government in accordance with national laws that does not violate international maritime legislation. In its letter, sent through the Spanish Embassy in Washington, Foreign Affairs adds that the refusal to allow the stopover has been limited to specific cases that do not distort the fact that thousands of ships with flags from around the world continue to dock regularly in Spanish ports, nor does it respond in any way to an unfriendly attitude towards the United States.
The North American maritime agency announced on December 6 the opening of an investigation to determine whether Spain “is creating unfavorable conditions for maritime transport in the foreign trade of the United States by denying entry to its ports to certain vessels.” The FMC recalled that the law empowers it to deny entry into US ports of ships from the sanctioned country and to impose fines of up to 2.3 million dollars (2.1 million euros) per stopover.
The statement cited the cases of Maesk Denver and the Maesk Seletartwo container ships from New York that were scheduled to dock in the port of Algeciras on the 8th and 14th of last November and to which the Spanish Government denied the stopover after having information that they were transporting weapons destined for Israel. Both ships, with American flag, participate in the Maritime Security Program (MSP) of the United States Maritime Administration (MARAD), a fleet of commercial vessels that is available to the United States Department of Defense for cases of conflict or emergency.
Furthermore, although it is not part of said program, the research includes the Marianne Danica, a Danish-flagged ship that set sail from Madras (India) bound for the port of Haifa (Israel), loaded with 28.6 tons of explosives, and to which
Albares then assured in Brussels that Spain would systematically deny stops in Spanish ports for ships transporting weapons for Israel. “It is the first time we have done it, because it is the first time we have detected a ship that is carrying a shipment of weapons to Israel and that wants to stop at a Spanish port,” he alleged.
The US agency, which claims jurisdiction to intervene regardless of the ship’s flag country, expressed its concern that “this apparent policy of denying entry to certain ships creates unfavorable conditions for maritime transport in foreign trade.” The investigation is still in a preliminary phase, in which a general counsel has been appointed and a deadline has been opened, until the 26th, for interested parties, such as the Spanish Government and the Danish maritime transport company Maesk, to whose pressure diplomatic sources attribute the opening of the file, present allegations.
