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The Trading with the Enemy Act is a United States law forbidding trade with enemies in times of war. The official description of the Act, as part of Public Law, is: "An Act To define, regulate, and punish trading with the enemy, and for other purposes."
The law was passed by Congress in 1917, in order to prevent American citizens from doing business with the German Empire, a nation with which the U.S. was at war.
One of the most famous applications of the law was the seizure of the Union Banking Corporation by the American government in October 1942, on the basis that it was a Nazi "front group". The Union Banking Corporation was operated by Prescott Bush.
The law has subsequently been applied to the Axis Powers, Cuba under Fidel Castro, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and others. Today the law is applied to most regimes which the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with.
In 1983, financier Marc Rich was convicted of, among other things, violating the Trading with the Enemy Act for trading in oil with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He was one of many people pardoned by President Bill Clinton in his last days in office.
There have been accusations that Dick Cheney violated the Trading with the Enemy Act when a subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation opened an office in Tehran, Iran, while Cheney was CEO of that company.
More recently, the Act has been used by the Department of Justice to prosecute "Human shields" who travelled to Iraq in advance of the 2003 invasion, on the basis that they spent money while in Iraq to act as human shields.
The Trading with the Enemy Act is Public Law 65-91, 65th Congress, Session I, Chapters 105, 106, October 6, 1917.
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