Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Mike PompeoPompeo calls for release of Chinese journalist jailed for coronavirus coverage Trump government approves 0M bomb sales to Saudi Trump administration strengthens order halting US investment in Chinese companies MORE consider placing Cuba on the US list of sponsors for terrorism, The New York Times Tuesday reported.
Two U.S. officials who spoke to the Times said members of the State Department had drafted a proposal to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, to which Pompeo would have to sign with just three weeks left until the president-elect Joe Biden
Joe Biden: An audit of Georgia’s signature finds no fraud during presidential election. Pence has refused to sign up to end the election, advocates say New Lincoln Project ad shows that Trump boundary wall was built from tombstones of COVID-19 victims.inauguration.
The move – which the Times noted would serve as a “thank you” to Cuban Americans and other anti-communist Latinos in Florida who helped President Trump
Donald Trump Georgia’s signature audit finds no fraud during presidential election. Pompeo calls for release of Chinese journalist jailed for coronavirus coverage. Pence refused to be signed to reverse the election, advocates say MORE. and other Republicans achieve a victory in the state – could also complicate the Biden government’s plans to return to normalizing relations established under former President Obama.
While Biden was able to move quickly after accepting Cuba’s office to remove Cuba from the list, the Times reported that it could require a formal review process of months.
A State Department spokesman said on inquiry from The Hill that the agency was not discussing ‘deliberations or possible deliberations’ on the designation of terrorism.
The State Department define a state sponsor of terrorism as a country that ‘has repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism. ”
States given this designation are subject to four categories of sanctions: restrictions on U.S. foreign aid, a ban on the export and sale of defense, control over the export of dual-use items, and other financial restrictions.
There are currently only three countries on the terror list: Iran, North Korea and Syria.
The State Department removed Cuba from the list in 2015 under the Obama administration and normalized relations between Washington and Havana for the first time since Cuba’s communist revolution in 1959.
In 2016, Obama became the first U.S. president to visit the island nation since Calvin Coolidge.
Cuba was first added to the terrorist list under the Reagan administration in 1982 following the country’s support for left – wing insurgents in Latin America.
However, US-Cuba relations have become increasingly strained under the Trump administration and the State Department. Notice Congress in May that Cuba was one of the countries identified as “Did not fully cooperate” with the US counter-terrorism efforts in 2019, which is the first year that Cuba has been certified since 2015 as not fully cooperating.
During the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign mobilized fears among Cubans and others in Florida that Biden would not oppose communism in Latin America, and Trump called Obama’s agreement with Cuba ‘terrible and misleading’.
Democrats on Tuesday condemned a potential bailout for state terrorism for Cuba, with Rep. Gregory Meeks
Gregory Weldon Meeks150 House Democrats support Biden to reintroduce Iran’s nuclear deal For Biden, the answer to North Korea is now impossible to ignore Foreign Minister Meeks. (DN.Y.), the newly elected chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Times that the move “another stunt by this president with less than 23 days to go. ”
“He is trying to handcuff the incoming government,” Meeks added.