U.S. President Joe Biden intends to lift Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House announced Tuesday, as part of a deal facilitated by the Catholic Church to free political prisoners on the island.
Senior U.S. administration officials, who previewed the announcement on the condition of anonymity, said “many dozens” of political prisoners and others considered by the U.S. to be unjustly detained would be released by the end of the Biden administration at noon on Jan. 20.
The U.S. would also ease some economic pressure on Cuba, as well as a 2017 memorandum issued by then-president Donald Trump toughening Washington’s posture toward Cuba.
Biden is “honouring the wisdom and counsel that has been provided to him by many world leaders, especially in Latin America, who have encouraged him to take these actions, on how best to advance the human rights of the Cuban people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said the government informed Pope Francis it will release 553 people who had been convicted of different crimes. It said they will be gradually released, as the authorities analyze the legal and humanitarian options.
The ministry didn’t link their release to the U.S. decision, but said it was “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025” declared by Pope Francis.
The Cuban authorities didn’t say who is among the 553 people to be released.
Unlikely to last
The determination by the outgoing president is likely to be reversed as early as next week after Trump, the president-elect, takes office and U.S. secretary of state-designate Marco Rubio becomes the country’s top diplomat.
Rubio, whose family left Cuba in the 1950s before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, has long been a proponent of sanctions against the island nation. Rubio will appear before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday for his confirmation hearing and is expected to address his Cuban roots in his testimony.
Trump has also appointed Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former White House National Security Council aide and strong supporter of sanctions against Cuba, to be his special envoy to Latin America.
In the final days of Trump’s first administration, on Jan. 11, 2021, the White House reinstated the designation, which had been reversed during the period of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States during President Barack Obama’s second term in office. In doing so, the Trump administration cited Cuba’s support for Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and its refusal to extradite Colombian rebels to Colombia, among other issues, including its continued harbouring of wanted Americans.
Biden-era sanctions
About six months later, the Biden administration levied new sanctions on island officials and the national revolutionary police after hundreds of Cubans were arrested during demonstrations in Havana and other cities to protest shortages, power outages and government policies. They were the first such protests since the 1990s.
Human rights groups and activists, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have been pressing the Biden administration to lift the designation to ease the suffering of Cuban people who feel the impact of Cuba’s economic isolation.
Cuba’s government recognized the announcement and expressed its gratitude, although it deemed it “limited.”
“The decision announced today by the United States, rectifies, in a very limited way, some aspects of a cruel and unjust policy,” the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.
‘No credible evidence’Â
Senior U.S. administration officials said the Biden administration had determined there was “no credible evidence” that Cuba was currently engaged in supporting international terrorism.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry said that the government is conscious that the incoming U.S. government could reverse the decision, but that it will remain “ready to develop a respectful relation with that country.”
There was no immediate comment from the Trump transition team or from Rubio or his office, but one of his Republican colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, quickly denounced the move.
“Today’s decision is unacceptable on its merits,” Cruz said in a statement. “The terrorism advanced by the Cuban regime has not ceased. I will work with President Trump and my colleagues to immediately reverse and limit the damage from the decision.”
Biden, in a national security memorandum issued Tuesday, certified that Cuba hasn’t provided any support for international terrorism during the last six months and had provided the administration with assurances that it wouldn’t support acts of terrorism in the future.
The move comes after the administration in May removed Cuba from the State Department’s short list of countries that it deems less than fully co-operative against violent groups.
