WESTERN Europe has reacted, with fury to US laws threatening foreign companies which do business with Cuba, Iran and Libya. EU officials say that this time the anger might be backed by action.
The latest dispute differs in several respects from previous trans Atlantic spats. For example, Washington is not threatening actions it has taken them.
The Helms Burton law punishing companies which have certain kinds of links with Havana, and the D'Amato law imposing sanctions on firms investing in oil and gas projects in Libya and Iran, have both been signed.
Perhaps more significantly, the 15 EU member states have shown an unusual degree of solidarity in reacting to the US moves, which are seen as encroaching on the rights of governments and firms.
EU officials say they themselves were surprised by the speed with which EU foreign ministers agreed on a list of tentative retaliatory actions at a meeting in Brussels in July.
It took only about half an hour for the ministers to endorse in principle a Commission proposal for responding to the Cuba bill, which Washington sees as essential in putting pressure on the island's communist regime.
Possible actions, since formalised, include barring EU companies from paying US fines, drafting a "watch list" of US companies which might benefit from the law at the expense of EU competitors, and setting visa or entry restrictions.
The proposal was written in a way designed to make it apply to the Iran Libya law signed by President Clinton on Monday, punishing those countries for their "reputed role in sponsoring terrorism.
Officials said it would be some time before the EU response was agreed, because it is August and many European governments are all but closed down, and because the legislation is complicated.
Foreign ministers are likely to discuss the proposals informally at a meeting in Tralee, Co Kerry, on September 7th and 8th, then sign off on them in late September or early October, one diplomat said.
"We have to send out very strong signals," he added.
Western European politicians, many hoping that President Clinton's approval of the two laws is a matter of internal US election politics that will lose significance after November, sought yesterday to play down the likelihood of an all out trade war.
"I am not convinced that everything will be eaten as hot as it's being cooked up," the German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, said on German radio.
But no one was implying that Europe could just sit back and take it.
. The Turkish Energy Minister, Mr Recai Kutan, will visit Iran this week for talks on boosting energy trade despite new US restrictions on foreign companies making gas and oil deals with Tehran, government officials said in Ankara.
. In Tokyo, Japan said it regretted the US laws and would urge Washington to reconsider.