So we should all be familiar with the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) passports dispute (news articles here and here and here). Update: They can go! Another update: They can’t go.

Here’s a possible reason (I say possible with the faintest of certainty) that the State Department has suddenly become interested in Haudenosaunee passports (another reason might be the alleged immigrant and drug smuggling across the border problem):

The State Department has been litigating a massive NAFTA arbitration claim against Six Nations Grand River Enterprises, a large Haudenosaunee tobacco wholesaler located in Ontario and doing hundreds of millions of dollars of business in the States. The issue is whether the United States illegally destroyed Six Nations GRE’s investment in the U.S. by enforcing the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement against them. Docs are here. The case is pending.

The opening argument in the actual hearing before the arbitration tribunal was made by the counsel for the State Department Harold Koh, who noted the importance of the tobacco MSA to the Obama Administration.

One way for the United States to lose the NAFTA arbitration (perhaps) is if the tribunal finds the tobacco MSA was intended to wipe out legitimate wholesalers like Six Nations GRE (which it most certainly is doing, and in my view it appears very likely that the major tobacco manufacturers and state AG offices had at least some intent to do when negotiating the settlement agreement).

Maybe the State Department is doing this business with the passports as payback? Who knows?