Joe Biden wants to have Cuba removed from the terror list

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Lerato Khumalo

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration

Biden wants to have Cuba removed from the terrorist list

January 14, 2025 – 9:49 p.mReading time: 2 minutes

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Joe Biden: He is nearing the end of his term in office. (Source: IMAGO/CNP / MediaPunch/imago)

Cuba is subject to strict US sanctions. Shortly before the end of his term in office, Joe Biden wants to remove the country from the terror list and thereby free political prisoners.

Shortly before the end of his term in office, US President Joe Biden wants to remove Cuba from the US terror list. “We have no information to support the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism,” a senior U.S. government official said. Biden wants to inform Congress, which has to consider such a decision, today, it was said in Washington.

The step is likely to be primarily symbolic in nature. Biden’s predecessor and successor Donald Trump put Cuba back on the list shortly before the end of his first term in office.

Whether Cuba will ultimately be removed from the terror list will now again be in the hands of Trump. He could reverse Biden’s decision immediately after his inauguration on Monday.

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. The Catholic Church is currently also committed to this. “We believe there will be a significant number of people who will be released,” a government official said. It is assumed that some could be released before the end of Biden’s presidency on Monday.

The government official said the move was a “gesture of goodwill,” helped the Cuban people and was in the national interest of the United States. 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, and 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.

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. Barack Obama’s government removed the socialist country from the terror list in 2015 – thereby removing an important obstacle in the diplomatic rapprochement between neighboring countries after a decades-long ice age.

The Trump administration, in turn, reversed this move in 2021, shortly before handing over the reins to Biden. The reasoning at the time was that the government was supporting international terrorism and oppressing its own people. Support for Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro was also denounced. The reason given at the time was that the socialist Caribbean state had refused to extradite ten leaders of the left-wing guerrilla organization ELN to Colombia who were wanted there for an attack on a police academy in Bogotá.