US President Joe Biden informed Congress on Tuesday that his administration will remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the White House said, as part of a deal to free political prisoners in the Caribbean island nation and people considered by Washington to be unjustly detained by the government in Havana.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Joe Biden informed Congress on Tuesday that his administration will remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the White House said, as part of an agreement to free political prisoners in the Caribbean island country and people considered by Washington to be unjustly detained by the government in Havana.
The decision came after the Biden administration completed an assessment and concluded that there was “no credible evidence” that Cuba currently supported international terrorism, senior Biden administration officials said during a press conference.
In doing so, Mr. Biden reversed the decision taken by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, in January 2021, to re-list Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. Mr. Trump acted in this way in the final days of his first presidential term in order to reverse the efforts of rapprochement with Cuba deployed by former President Barack Obama, whose second term saw the United States lift the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Senior Biden administration officials expect Cuba to release “several dozen” prisoners by Mr. Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
-Also on Tuesday, Mr. Biden signed a national security memorandum that reverses a 2017 Cuba sanctions policy adopted by Mr. Trump, known as “Presidential National Security Memorandum 5,” effectively ending the restrictions imposed on certain Cuban individuals and entities that engage in financial transactions with U.S. individuals and entities.
To further incentivize the Cuban government to release prisoners, the Biden administration granted a waiver of Title III of the Helms Burton Act for a period of six months, according to a statement from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean- Rock.
The measure would prevent U.S. citizens or others from filing suit in U.S. courts over property confiscated by Cuban authorities after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
