The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it will remove Cuba from the “state sponsor of terrorism” list, a move that will likely be reversed by the incoming Trump administration.
According to US officials, the move is the result of a deal brokered by the Catholic Church that will see Cuba release political prisoners. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced Tuesday that Cuba will free 553 people and said that he informed Pope Francis.
Removing Cuba from the list will ease sanctions slightly, though the country remains under a decades-old trade embargo. “This decision puts an end to specific coercive measures which, together with many others, seriously damage the Cuban economy and have a severe impact on the population,” the Cuban Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The only other countries listed by the US as state sponsors of terrorism are Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Cuba was first put on the list under the Reagan administration in 1982. The Obama administration removed Cuba in 2015 as part of its steps toward normalization with Havana but it was relisted in January 2021 by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as one of the first Trump administration’s final foreign policy moves.
Trump’s incoming secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), is staunchly opposed to lifting sanctions on Cuba. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, has previously introduced legislation that would prohibit the removal of Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list.
Trump’s incoming envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, was asked by The New York Times if the move would be reversed by the next administration. “There’s a process, so it will take time, but in the meantime, we can take other measures that will have even greater impact,” he said.
