Does the Helms-Burton Act abrogate the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities? Alternatively, must a U.S. national suing under the Act also satisfy one of the enumerated exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity found in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA)? The Court must determine if the specific language and structure of the Helms-Burton Act create a standalone waiver of immunity.

• The Helms-Burton Act waives sovereign immunity by creating a cause of action that expressly applies against foreign agencies and instrumentalities.
• Specifically, 22 U. S. C. § 6082(a)(1)(A) confers a right of action against any "person" who traffics in confiscated property, and § 6023(11) defines "person" to include "any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state."
• Petitioner does not need to satisfy an additional exception under the FSIA because the Helms-Burton Act is a specific statutory exception to that general immunity.

• As wholly owned instrumentalities of Cuba, they are presumptively immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
• The Helms-Burton Act does not explicitly waive sovereign immunity and therefore "harmoniously coexists" with the FSIA.
• Petitioner must demonstrate that the suit falls within one of the FSIA's enumerated exceptions, such as the commercial activity exception (28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(2)) or the expropriation exception (28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(3)).

• The Court held that the Helms-Burton Act abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities, removing the requirement for plaintiffs to satisfy an FSIA exception.
• Under *Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz*, a statute creating a cause of action that explicitly applies against a sovereign waives immunity "even without a separate waiver provision."
• The Court found this occurred here because 22 U. S. C. § 6082(a)(1)(A) confers a right of action against any "person" who traffics in confiscated property, and § 6023(11) defines "person" to include "any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state."
• The Court reasoned that Congress does not ordinarily enact self-defeating statutes (*Quarles v. United States*) or "authorize a suit against a sovereign with one hand, only to bar it with the other" (*Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for P. R. v. Centro De Periodismo Investigativo, Inc.*).
• Requiring FSIA exceptions under 28 U. S. C. § 1605(a)(2) or (3) would eviscerate the cause of action because the Act's own economic embargo (22 U. S. C. § 6032(h)) makes proving a commercial nexus in the U.S. nearly impossible.
• The Court noted that 22 U. S. C. § 6082(c)(1) places these suits under the general federal-question jurisdiction of 28 U. S. C. § 1331, rather than the FSIA's jurisdictional provision at 28 U. S. C. § 1330.
• The Act grants the President plenary power to suspend suits (§§ 6085(c)(1)(B), 6064(a)), which reinstates a pre-FSIA regime where the Executive Branch—not the courts—determines immunity, similar to the logic in *Republic of Iraq v. Beaty*.