MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Sixteen U.S.&nbsp;states&nbsp;and a handful of&nbsp;Caribbean&nbsp;governments on Tuesday expressed support for&nbsp;Mexico's&nbsp;appeal&nbsp;in a civil&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;against U.S. gun manufacturers.
The&nbsp;states, which all have Democratic attorneys general, as well as the District of Columbia, filed an amicus&nbsp;curiae brief in a U.S. court on Tuesday, while the countries of Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago joined a separate amicus&nbsp;curiae brief.
Mexico said last week it had filed an&nbsp;appeal&nbsp;in a $10 billion&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;seeking to hold U.S. gun makers responsible for facilitating the trafficking of deadly weapons across the border.
A U.S. judge dismissed the&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;in September, citing a U.S. law that protects&nbsp;arms&nbsp;manufactures from being held liable for crimes committed with their products.
The brief from the U.S.&nbsp;states&nbsp;argues the judge's decision was "premised on a misreading" of that law.
The brief from the&nbsp;Caribbean&nbsp;governments, which was joined by a network of non-governmental organizations, follows a summit among regional leaders last month held in the Bahamas, where&nbsp;arms&nbsp;trafficking was a key topic.
U.S. officials in August noted a spike in weapons smuggling to Haiti and the&nbsp;Caribbean&nbsp;in previous&nbsp;months.
The&nbsp;states&nbsp;filing the brief were California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.
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(Reporting by Brendan O'Boyle, Kylie Madry and Jasper Ward; Editing by Bradley Perrett)

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US states, Caribbean nations back Mexico's appeal in arms lawsuit