The Cuban government can be added to the United States’ list of countries that sponsor terrorism, if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signs a State Department proposal as the Trump administration ends.
A source familiar with the discussions confirms that senior State Department officials are considering the appointment, which, days before the next government, would further remove the US from the Obama-era reconciliation with Havana. One designation would trigger automatic sanctions against the Cuban government and add it to a list that includes North Korea, Iran and Syria as the only countries the United States has designated as sponsors of terrorism.
It was not immediately clear whether Pompeo intended to implement the proposal, previously reported in The New York Times.
In this November 24 photo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media before meeting with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah at the State Department in Washington. (Saul Loeb / Photo of the pool via AP, Archive)
A State Department spokesman said the department did not “discuss deliberations or potential deliberations” about the designation process.
Penalties for appearing on the list of state sponsors of terrorism include strict international sanctions and limits on US foreign aid.
TRUMP IMPLEMENTS NEW TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS TO CUBA, PROHIBITS THE PURCHASE OF RUM AND TOBACCO
The Reagan administration initially put Cuba on the list in the early 1980s. It remained there until 2015, when the Obama administration normalized relations after decades of communist control.
The State Department announced last May that Cuba was among the five countries that have not fully cooperated with US counterterrorism efforts. The other four were three from the list of state sponsors and Venezuela.
State Department officials said Cuba had refused to extradite 10 suspects wanted in Colombia for a bombing at the police academy that killed 22 people and wounded dozens more. The authorities also accused Cuba of harboring several American fugitives, including Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur. She was convicted of the murder of New Jersey State Policeman Werner Foerster in 1973.
But Ben Rhodes, an Obama-era deputy national security adviser, told the Times that the charges were “utter nonsense”.
“Cuba is not a state that sponsors terrorism,” he told the newspaper.
President-elect Joe Biden, who served as vice president in the Obama administration, criticized President Trump’s approach to the country as “failed”. He told the Americas Quarterly earlier this year that Trump’s diplomacy there “inflicted damage” on ordinary Cubans, without putting pressure on his government to promote “democracy and human rights”.
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In the past few months, the Trump administration has implemented new travel restrictions in Cuba and has banned the purchase of rum and tobacco.
Many Cuban Americans have criticized the country’s authoritarian regime and may be partially responsible for President Trump’s strong role among Hispanic voters in the state of Florida during the November elections.