The Trump administration is considering restoring Cuba to the list of countries accusing the US of sponsoring terrorism, an apparent attempt to confuse President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy plans while providing a possible boost to Republicans electing them to the U.S. Senate in Georgia. with the effort said Wednesday.
Such a move would enable President Trump to boast of reversing a significant Obama-era initiative and creating potential hardships for Cuba, the prospects of which please the president’s right-wing supporters and will be seen as a reward for Latinos. who voted for him in Florida.
“It’s like a stink bomb thrown at the wedding party: a giveaway gift that stinks but is robust,” said John Kavulich, president of the U.S. Trade and Economic Council of America and Cuba, in New York. potential action. ‘It’s easy to sell. This is another subject that Trump can mark where he can say that he reversed something Obama did. ‘
In what was considered a landmark achievement at the time, President Obama ended half a century of hostility to the Communist government during the Cold War in 2014 and 2015, restoring diplomatic ties with Havana, easing travel restrictions between Cuba and the United States, and became the first American CEO to visit the island since 1926.
Obama also removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors for terrorism, a list created by the State Department after regularly assessing a country’s actions, such as attacking civilians or destabilizing other nations. The then Foreign Ministry said at the time that although it retained “significant concerns and differences of opinion with a wide range of Cuban policies and actions”, it no longer rose to the level of state-sponsored terrorism.
Trump, Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and other senior administration officials have acted on many of Obama’s signatures, accusing Cuba of being a tyrannical dictatorship, even after its leader, Raul Castro, long ago retired and was replaced by President Miguel Diaz. Cinnamon.
They claimed that Cuba was a promoter of a broad definition of terrorism that included the anti-democratic treatment of its own citizens and ties with Iran. The government has filed similar allegations against Venezuela and Nicaragua.
If we are put on the list again, Cuba will be essentially an international pariah and will complicate the efforts of American enterprises, including several US agricultural states, to trade with Havana or US officials to negotiate with their Cuban counterparts.
The only other countries on the list are Iran, North Korea and Syria. Sudan was recently removed.
Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (DN.Y.), the incoming chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump and his advisers want to ‘tie the hands of the elected president’. “They’re playing politics on the backs of the Cuban people,” Meeks said in an interview.
Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki spoke to reporters on Wednesday. However, she said the Biden government would issue a memorandum on the afternoon of Inauguration Day to “freeze” controversial regulations and executive orders, especially those issued in the waning weeks of the Trump term.
Reversing the designation of Cuba terrorism is likely to be more difficult. The Department of State, which is expected to be led by longtime Biden adviser Antony Blinken, will have to refute many of the Trump-era arguments and reaffirm that Cuba is not a sponsor of terrorism.
The idea of blacklisting Cuba has been under discussion in the administration for months, especially when the Cuban hawk Mauricio Claver-Carone handled Latin American affairs in Trump’s National Security Council. Claver-Carone, an ally of Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Left the post in September after Trump nominated him to head the Inter-American Development Bank, and momentum for the Cuba move appears to be waning.
U.S. officials have recently begun taking action, according to people familiar with the debate, who have asked anonymity to discuss internal discussions. The New York Times reported the discussions earlier Wednesday.
Rubio especially supports the proposal. In a recent opie for the Miami Herald, Senator Biden urged not to return to Obama’s “concessions” to Cuba.
“Would Biden stand with the dissidents and pursue the most important reforms of the Trump administration, which had financially paralyzed the regime and put the demands of the Cuban people first?” Rubio wrote. “Or would he return to the failed Obama administration to reward Raúl Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel with sanctions relief and political legitimacy for decades of repressive behavior?”
Critics of the government have said that placing Cuba on the terror list is at the right time to help two Republican candidates supporting Trump in Georgia, where next week’s election will determine which party controls the Senate. The move will enable the president and senators to trumpet the cause of the fight against communism.
Republican Sens Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have repeatedly reiterated their Democratic challengers and the party they represent.
There was no official announcement as to whether Pompeo would finalize the decision in his last 21 days as foreign minister. However, he was relentlessly attacking Cuba, especially for his support of Venezuela and Iran.
Cuba did not wait for official confirmation.
“I condemn Secretary of State Pompeo’s maneuvers to include #Cuba in the list of states sponsoring terrorism to please the anti-Cuban minority in Florida,” Cuban Secretary of State Bruno Rodríguez said on Twitter.
Ricardo Herrero, head of the Cuban study group, an American group of Cuban descendants who favor better relations between the US and Cuba, also criticized the move. “If Cuba poses a significant threat to US national security, this government would not be so brave as to kick it like a proverbial political footballer to reward its allies,” he said on Twitter.
Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this report.