secretary of state Mike Pompeo
Mike PompeoIntel’s vice president says the government agency’s cyber attack “may have started earlier” The Trump administration could put Cuba on the terrorism list: Pompeo’s report calls for release of Chinese journalist jailed for coronavirus coverage MORE is considering placing Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism in the United States, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Two U.S. officials who spoke to the Times said members of the State Department have drafted a proposal to designate Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, which Pompeo should sign with just three weeks to go before the president-elect Joe Biden
Joe Biden: Trump to interrupt trip to Florida and return to Washington on Thursday, Intel vice president says government agency cyber attack “may have started earlier” Trump administration declassifies unconfirmed intelligence on China’s Rewards to U.S. Forces in Afghanistan: MORE Reportinauguration.
The move, 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: Trump to interrupt the trip to Florida and return to Washington on Thursday, Intel’s vice president said he could have started a government agency cyber attack earlier. and other Republicans achieve victories in the state – could also complicate the Biden administration’s plans to return to normalizing relations instituted under former President Obama.
While Biden could move quickly to remove Cuba from the list upon taking office, the Times reported that this could require a formal review process of months.
When contacted by The Hill, a State Department spokesman said the agency does not “discuss deliberations or potential deliberations” on terrorism designations.
The State Department defines a state sponsor of terrorism as a country that has “he repeatedly supported acts of international terrorism. ”
States receiving this designation are subject to four main categories of sanctions: restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance, a ban on exports and defense sales, controls on exports of dual-use items, and other financial restrictions.
Currently, there are only three countries on the terrorism list: Iran, North Korea and Syria.
The State Department removed Cuba from the list in 2015 under the Obama administration, normalizing relations between Washington and Havana for the first time since Cuba’s 1959 communist revolution.
In 2016, Obama became the first U.S. president to visit the island nation since Calvin Coolidge.
Cuba was first added to the terrorism list under the Reagan administration in 1982, following the country’s support for left-wing insurgency groups throughout Latin America.
However, relations between the United States and Cuba have grown increasingly under the Trump administration, with the State Department notifying Congress in May that Cuba was among the countries identified as “Not fully cooperating” with U.S. counterterrorism efforts in 2019, marking the first year that Cuba was certified as not fully cooperating since 2015.
Throughout the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign mobilized fears among Cubans and others in Florida that Biden would not resist communism in Latin America, and Trump called Obama’s deal with Cuba “terrible. and wrong “.
On Tuesday, Democrats condemned a potential designation as a sponsor of state terrorism for Cuba, with the rep. Gregory Meeks
Gregory Weldon Meeks: The Trump Administration May Put Cuba on the Terrorism List: The Report of 150 House Democrats Supports Biden’s Bet on Returning to Iran’s Nuclear Agreement For Biden’s Response to North Korea is now impossible to ignore MORE (DN.Y.), the newly elected chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who told the Times that the measure would be “another trick of this president with 23 days to go ”.
“Try to put handcuffs on the incoming administration,” Meeks added.