US President Biden wants to remove Cuba from the terror list – and thus advance negotiations on the release of political prisoners. But the push could be short-lived.
According to government sources, the government of US President Joe Biden wants to lift the classification of Cuba as a terrorist sponsor. “We have no information to support the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism,” a senior U.S. government official said.
The move was intended to advance negotiations on the release of a “significant number of political prisoners,” it said. With the announcement, the US government wants to ensure that people unjustly imprisoned in Cuba are released – including people who took part in protests against the Cuban leadership in 2021.
Trump's Republicans are hostile to Cuba
There is hope that the deletion could happen before Donald Trump takes office on Monday. The Republican Party has taken a hard line toward the authorities in communist Cuba.
However, a deletion before the change of power would still not be a guarantee of long-term existence: Trump could reverse Biden's decision immediately after his inauguration on Monday. Shortly before the end of his first term in office, he put Cuba back on the terrorist list. The classification had previously been lifted due to the rapprochement between the USA and Cuba under Barack Obama.
When Trump takes office, Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio, whose family fled Cuba in the 1950s before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, is also expected to take office. He has long advocated sanctions against the island's communist government.
Deletion could lift sanctions
Biden's current move is a “gesture of goodwill”, helps the Cuban people and is in the national interest of the USA, said the government representative. The move would also theoretically lift certain restrictions on financial transactions with entities in Cuba.
The designation as a state sponsor of terrorism is accompanied by severe sanctions. Among other things, US foreign aid is severely restricted. Arms exports and sales are prohibited; export controls apply to goods that can be used for civil as well as military purposes. In addition to Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria are currently on the terror list.
First placed on terror list in 1982
Cuba was added to the US index in 1982, among other things because it had given shelter to members of the Basque underground organization ETA and the Colombian guerrilla group FARC.
