"States supporting terrorism" | Trump administration puts Cuba on U.S. blacklist
- by Virginia Carter
- in World Media
- — Jan 14, 2021
The Washington Office on Latin America, a D.C. -based advocacy group, said the Trump administration's move was "clearly a politically motivated decision, a reward to domestic political allies during the Trump administration during its last weeks, rather than an effective foreign policy step".
Likewise, the Ministry of Foreign Relations of China condemned Washington's manipulation of the anti-terrorist fight as a pretext to keep oppression and impose economic sanctions on Cuba.
To justify his decision, he invoked Havana's refusal to extradite ten leaders of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to Colombia after the January 2019 attack, claimed by the group, against the school of cadets from Bogota, who killed 22 people.
Biden has said he would reverse many of Trump's policies on Cuba upon entering office.
After Trump came to power in 2017, he tightened his path towards Cuba, introducing, among other things, travel restrictions to the United States and money transfers to a Caribbean island.
With nine days left in office, President Donald Trump's administration pointed to Cuba's ties with Colombian rebels and Venezuela's leftist government and its welcome to several U.S. fugitives.
Cuba's placement on the state sponsors of terror list is meant to be a thorn in any plan by the Biden administration for rapprochement.
Cuba was first designated as a state sponsor of terror by the Reagan administration in 1982. It is also seen as potentially complicating any efforts by the incoming Joe Biden administration to improve relations with Havana.
President Donald Trump's administration made the announcement just days before he leaves the White House.
When explaining the decision, officials cited Cuba's support of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro who the United States refuses to recognise.
'Donald Trump - who as a businessman registered the Trump Organization's trademark on the island in 2008 - has always seen Cuba as a political football with zero regard for the long-suffering Cuban people'.
Cuba's place on the list will require a formal review that could take months, analysts say.
Insurance companies could also suspend coverage or jack up rates for operators of ships and aircrafts to Cuba, he said.
Cuba returns to the list following its "broken commitment" to stop supporting terrorism as a condition of its removal by the previous administration in 2015.
Despite nascent openings and increasing foreign investment since the 1990s, Cuba's economy remains heavily controlled by the government and the military.
"For example, the Cuban regime has refused to return Joanne Chesimard, on the FBI" s "most wanted terrorists" list for executing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973; Ishmael LaBeet, convicted of killing eight people in the US Virgin Islands in 1972; Charles Lee Hill, charged with killing New Mexico state policeman Robert Rosenbloom in 1971; and others.
In a much-anticipated move, the US formally took Sudan off the list last month as part of a deal in which the country agreed to normalize relations and open economic ties with Israel.