US Rep. Randy Fine Threatens to Bar British Companies from Florida Over UK's Planned Israeli Settlement Trade Ban

US Representative Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, has told the British government that a law he authored as a state legislator would cut off British companies from doing business with Florida if the UK follows through on a planned ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

"Florida is one of Britain's largest trading partners," Fine wrote in a post on X. "They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars."

"Any company — or nation — that boycotts Israel is boycotted by Florida."

Fine said the statute he pushed through the Florida legislature would bar any British company "forced to comply" with a UK settlement boycott from doing business with any state or local government in Florida. His post cuts off at that point in the record reviewed by Middle East Eye, and the full statutory text and scope of the law have not been independently verified.

The threat is aimed at a UK government proposal to restrict trade tied to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law by the International Court of Justice and a wide body of international opinion. The UK's specific announcement was not directly quoted in available reporting, but is treated here as the stated trigger for Fine's post.

A state-level weapon against an ally's policy

Fine's message is notable less for its rhetoric than for what it describes: a US state law, passed while he served in Florida's legislature, explicitly built to penalize foreign companies that comply with their own government's restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements. Florida is one of several US states with anti-boycott statutes originally aimed at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; Fine's post suggests this one extends to compliance with a foreign government's settlement-trade policy, not just voluntary boycotts by private firms.

The episode illustrates a mechanism that rarely gets documented this plainly: an elected US official using the economic leverage of a state government to discourage an allied country from restricting commerce with settlements the international community regards as unlawful. No Israeli official or entity is quoted in the exchange. The pressure is American, aimed at Britain, in defense of the settlement enterprise.

Middle East Eye's report did not include a UK government statement responding to Fine's threat, and the precise legislative language of the Florida law he references has not been published in full in the material reviewed.