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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://theintercept.com/2023/12/14/cuba-terror-biden-state-department/">theintercept.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">State Department Stuns Congress, Saying Biden Is Not Even Reviewing Trump’s Terror Designation of Cuba</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Ryan Grim - December 14, 2023<br></div>
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<p><span>As one of</span> his final foreign policy acts as president, in January 2021 Donald Trump added Cuba to the list of “State Sponsors of Terror,” <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/16/trump-cuba-embargo-reverse-obama-opening/">reversing</a> the Obama administration’s 2015 determination that the designation was no longer appropriate. </p>
<p>The incoming Biden administration pledged to Congress it would start
the process of overturning Trump’s redesignation, which by statute
requires a six-month review process. Yet in a private briefing last week
on Capitol Hill, State Department official Eric Jacobstein stunned
members of Congress by telling them that the department has not even
begun the review process, according to three sources in the room.</p>
<p>In the briefing, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., inquired as to the
status of the review. In order to remove Cuba from the list, statute
requires at least a six-month review period. The news that the State
Department had not even launched the review came as a surprise to
McGovern and others in the room, and meant that the delisting couldn’t
occur before mid-2024 at the earliest. McGovern pressed Jacobstein,
noting that Congress had previously been assured that a review was
underway. Jacobstein, according to sources in the room, said that
perhaps there had been some misunderstanding around a different review
of sanctions policies that State was undertaking. </p>
<p>“I don’t think they were prepared to respond to how upset members
were,” said one Democrat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the
private meeting. “They were furious.” </p>
<p>Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the State Department, declined to
comment on a closed-door meeting in Congress, and additionally declined
to directly confirm or deny whether a review was ongoing. “We’re not
going to comment on the deliberative process as it relates to the status
of any designation,” said Patel. “Any review of Cuba’s status on the
SST list — should one ever happen — would be based on the law and
criteria established by Congress.”</p>
<p>McGovern, however, had already been told that such a review was
ongoing, according to multiple sources who heard directly from McGovern
about the State Department’s messaging. </p>
<p>Biden’s refusal to even review Cuba’s status marks a strong rebuke of
one of the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy
achievements, the move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. </p>
<p>The Trump administration’s rationale for redesignating Cuba as a
sponsor of terror relied heavily on the country having hosted
representatives from FARC and ELN, two armed guerrilla movements
designated by the U.S. as terror groups. But in October 2022, Colombian
President <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/06/24/colombia-elections-gustavo-petro/">Gustavo Petro</a>,
in a joint press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken,
noted that Colombia itself, in cooperation with the Obama
administration, had asked Cuba to host the FARC and ELN members as part
of peace talks. The move by the Trump administration was “an injustice,”
he said, and ought to be undone. “It is not us [Colombia] who must
correct it, but it does need to be corrected,” added Petro, himself a
onetime guerrilla.</p>
<p>“When it comes to Cuba,” Blinken said at the press conference, “and
when it comes to the state sponsor of terrorism designation, we have
clear laws, clear criteria, clear requirements, and we will continue as
necessary to revisit those to see if Cuba continues to merit that
designation.” Blinken’s public claim — “we will continue as necessary to
revisit” the designation — coupled with private assurances from the
State Department left members of Congress certain that a review was
underway. </p>
<p>Blinken was also asked about Cuba’s status in a <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?526772-1/state-department-foreign-policy-priorities-fiscal-year-2024-budget-request">hearing in March 2023</a>
and said that Cuba had yet to meet the requirements to be removed from
the list. “In both of these instances the Secretary was reiterating what
we’ve said previously — should there be rescission of the SST status,
it would need to be consistent with specific statutory criteria for
rescinding a SST determination,” Patel said.</p>
<p>The terror designation makes it difficult for Cubans to do
international business, crushing an already fragile economy. The U.S.
hard-line approach to Cuba has coincided with a surge in desperate
migration, with Cubans now making up a substantial portion of the
migrants arriving at the southern border. Nearly<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/24/record-breaking-numbers-of-cuban-migrants-entered-the-u-s-in-2022-23-00123346"> 425,000 Cubans have fled for the United States</a>
in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, shattering previous records. Instead of
moving to stem the flow by focusing on root causes in Cuba, the Biden
White House has been signaling support in recent days for
Republican-backed border policies. </p>
<p>Hopes for a shift on Cuba policy have not just been fueled by the
State Department’s misleading pledges about a review, but also by a
semi-public moment picked up by a hot mic ahead of the previous State of
the Union, in which Biden approached New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, one
of the chamber’s leading Cuba hawks, and told him the two needed to
chat. “Bob, I gotta talk to you about Cuba,” <a href="https://oncubanews.com/en/cuba-usa/biden-to-bob-menendez-i-gotta-talk-to-you-about-cuba/">Biden told him</a>. Menendez has since been <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/09/22/menendez-indictment-egypt/">indicted</a> as an alleged <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/09/27/menendez-indictment-egypt-intelligence/">intelligence asset</a> of Egypt, and there is no indication the two have talked about Cuba. </p>
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