The Cuban government could be added to the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signs a State Department proposal while the Trump administration degenerates.
A source familiar with the discussions confirms that State Department officials are considering considering the designation, which days before the next government will move the U.S. even further from the Obama-era reconciliation with Havana. An appointment would cause automatic sanctions against the Cuban government, adding to a list with North Korea, Iran and Syria as the only countries to have designated the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.
It was not immediately clear whether Pompeo wanted to implement the proposal, reported earlier in The New York Times.
In this November 24 photo, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to the media ahead of the meeting with Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah at the State Department in Washington. (Saul Loeb / pool photo via AP, file)
A State Department spokesman said the department was not discussing deliberations or possible deliberations on the designation process.
The fines for appearing on the list of state sponsors for terrorism contain severe international sanctions and restrictions on US foreign aid.
TRUMP IMPLEMENTS NEW TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS ON CUBA, PROHIBITED 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 rule.
The Department of State announced last May that Cuba is one of five countries that are not fully cooperating with the U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. The other four were the three on the state sponsor list and Venezuela.
State Department officials said Cuba was refusing to extradite ten suspects wanted in Colombia for a bomb attack on the police academy in which 22 people were killed and dozens injured. Authorities have also accused Cuba of harboring several American refugees, including Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur. She was convicted in 1973 of the murder of Werner Foerster, New Jersey.
But, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser in the Obama era, told the Times that the accusations were ‘complete nonsense’.
“Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism,” he told the newspaper.
Elected President 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 “harmed” everyday Cubans without pressuring their government to promote “democracy and human rights.”
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In recent months, the Trump administration has implemented new travel restrictions on Cuba and banned the purchase of rum and tobacco.
Many Cuban Americans were critical of the country’s authoritarian regime and may be partly responsible for President Trump’s strong performance among Spanish voters in the state of Florida during the November election.