prohibition against selling all products to Cuba except food and medicine. In October 1960 the Cuban administration responded by nationalizing all American businesses and most American privately owned properties on the island. Fidel Castro promised to separate Americans in Cuba from all of their possessions "down to the nails in their shoes". Cuba's nationalization laws required the government to compensate the owners of seized property, but compensation was to be made in Cuban bonds, an offer which was not taken seriously by the United States. Other countries which had their assets nationalised, including Switzerland, Canada, Spain, and France, accepted the terms offered by Cuba. According to Helen Yaffe, an academic specialising in Cuban and Latin American development, compensation offers by the Cuban government were rejected by U.S. property owners at the instruction of the U.S. government. The second wave of nationalizations prompted the Eisenhower administration, in one of its last actions, to sever all diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. The U.S. partial trade embargo with Cuba continued under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917. According to 2009 article in the Inter-American Law Review, the Cuban government's nationalization of US owned property is the “largest uncompensated taking of American property by a foreign government in history.” Assets seized, included vacation homes and bank accounts of wealthy individuals, but most seized property was owned by large American corporations, including sugar factories, mines and oil refineries. Kennedy presidency About the time of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 17 to 20 April 1961 (which had been largely planned under the Eisenhower administration, but which Kennedy had been informed of and had approved during the months preceding his presidency and in his first few months (from January 20, 1961) as president), Castro on April 16, 1961 and on May 1, 1961 characterised the Cuban revolution and state as "socialist", and aligned with the Soviet Union. On September 4, 1961, partly in response, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, a Cold War Act (among many other measures) that prohibited aid to Cuba and authorized the President to impose a complete trade-embargo against Cuba. On January 21, 1962, Cuba was suspended by the Organization of American States (OAS), by a vote of 14 in favor, one (Cuba) against with six abstentions. (See Cuba–OAS relations.) Mexico and Ecuador, two abstaining members, argued that the OAS Charter did not authorize expulsion. Multilateral sanctions were imposed