The United States officially removed Cuba from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism in 2015, as part of a short-lived rapprochement explosion during the Obama years. The renewal of the designation could affect President-elect Joe Biden’s potential plans for diplomacy with the island and appeal to Cuban Americans and other voters who helped lead President Donald Trump to victory in Florida, even though he lost the election.
When asked about a response to the Times report, a State Department spokesman told CNN that “we do not discuss deliberations or potential designations deliberations”. The White House declined to comment on the record when contacted by CNN.
The consideration worsens US-Cuba relations, which have reached their lowest point in decades, as the new Biden government and the Cuban government try to engage again after four harsh years of the Cold War era. Increased sanctions by the Trump administration and the disruption of the tourism industry by the coronavirus pandemic have already affected the island’s economy.
It is not yet known whether Pompeo will approve the plan, but the reversal of the measure by the Biden government could take months, the Times reported. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism may trigger sanctions, including “restrictions on US foreign aid; ban on exports and defense sales; certain export controls on dual-use items; and various financial and other restrictions,” according to the State Department.
US officials told the Times that the proposal to reassign Cuba to the terrorism list came from the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs – as opposed to the Counterterrorism Bureau, which would normally be heavily involved in such a move. Former Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes told the Times that the divergence from the standard planning protocol “is a sign that they know they cannot include Cuba on the list of merits”.
Ties between Cuba and the United States began to deteriorate in 2017, when the Trump administration not only imposed punitive economic sanctions on the communist government, but also restricted permission for U.S. citizens to travel to the island. The government also effectively ended legal remittances sent from Cuban Americans to family members in Cuba and canceled a wide range of other Obama-era policies, including allowing US cruise ships to visit the island and Major League Baseball to recruit Cuban players.
Recent relations between the two countries have been consistently restrictive. Pompeo announced earlier this month that the United States was placing Cuba, as well as Comoros, Nicaragua and Russia “on a Special Watch List for governments that have been involved in or tolerated ‘serious violations of religious freedom’.”
In September, Trump announced a new series of economic sanctions against Cuba that prohibit U.S. citizens from buying Cuban cigars, as well as rum, and from staying at Cuban government hotels on the island. And in May, the State Department found that Cuba was among the four nations that “did not fully cooperate” with American counterterrorism efforts last year.
Republicans have already expressed resistance to the Biden government’s planned policy in the region, with Senator Marco Rubio doubting a possible reversal of US policy toward Cuba.
“I think it would be a mistake, frankly, to return to a policy that did not have the intended effect,” said Rubio at NBC 6 earlier this month. “The Cuban military and the Cuban regime were benefiting from this, but it has not changed much in the lives of ordinary Cubans, be it for their freedom or prosperity.”
CNN’s Jenny Hansler, Patrick Oppmann, Maegan Vazquez and Philip Wang contributed to this report.
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