386
Opinion of the Court
ter, ibid., we have never questioned their competence to show the practical difficulty of pursuing a congressional goal requiring multinational agreement. We have, after all, not only recognized the limits of our own capacity to "determin[e] precisely when foreign nations will be offended by particular acts," Container Corp. of America v. Franchise Tax Bd., 463 U. S. 159, 194 (1983), but consistently acknowledged that the "nuances" of "the foreign policy of the United States . . . are much more the province of the Executive Branch and Congress than of this Court," id., at 196; Barclays, supra, at 327. In this case, repeated representations by the Executive Branch supported by formal diplomatic protests and concrete disputes are more than sufficient to demonstrate that the state Act stands in the way of Congress's diplomatic objectives.24
IV
The State's remaining argument is unavailing. It contends that the failure of Congress to preempt the state Act
24 The State appears to argue that we should ignore the evidence of the WTO dispute because under the federal law implementing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Congress foreclosed suits by private persons and foreign governments challenging a state law on the basis of GATT in federal or state courts, allowing only the National Government to raise such a challenge. See Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), § 102(c)(1), 108 Stat. 4818, 19 U. S. C. §§ 3512(b)(2)(A), 3512(c)(1); see also "Statement of Administrative Action" (SAA), reprinted in H. R. Doc. No. 103-216, pp. 656, 675-677 (1994). To consider such evidence, in its view, would effectively violate the ban by allowing private parties and foreign nations to challenge state procurement laws in domestic courts. But the terms of § 102 of the URAA and of the SAA simply do not support this argument. They refer to challenges to state law based on inconsistency with any of the "Uruguay Round Agreements." The challenge here is based on the federal Burma law. We reject the State's argument that the National Government's decisions to bar such WTO suits and to decline to bring its own suit against the Massachusetts Burma law evince its approval. These actions simply do not speak to the preemptive effect of the federal sanctions against Burma.
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