President Donald Trump who has been recently signed in as President of the United States for
his second term has rescinded the Biden administration’s last-minute decision to take Cuba off
the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Shortly after taking office for a second term, Trump
signed a so-called “rescission” of then-President Joe Biden’s Jan. 14 action that would have
removed the island controlled by Communists from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
Trump’s move essentially maintains Cuba on a list that the Republican president himself put
Cuba after his first term in 2021, along with scores of other revocations of what the new
White House was considered to be “harmful” policies and acts by his Democratic predecessor.
With Cuba agreeing to release over 500 people from its prisons, Biden’s declaration last week
seemed to be an attempt to reverse many of the restrictions imposed by Trump during his four
years in office.
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In a late-night social media response, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel referred to Trump’s
move to withdraw Biden’s measures as an “act of mockery and abuse.”
Cuba, which has always fiercely denied any backing for terrorism, has begun releasing a limited
number of detainees as part of a bigger plan discussed with the Vatican. However, it was
unclear if those releases would continue after Trump’s decision.
By removing Cuba from the terrorist list, related penalties would have been avoided for an
island already facing a serious economic crisis.
According to a senior administration source, Biden had also overturned a Trump directive from
2017 limited financial dealings with some Cuban firms connected to the military and
government.
In addition, Biden this week attempted to block individuals from launching lawsuits against both
Cuban entities and foreign firms under the Helms-Burton Act for property taken during Fidel
Castro’s 1959 revolution, the person said.
Trump, a scathing opponent of Cuba who had attempted to undo the detente with Havana that
Obama had negotiated during his first term and was unsure if he would now permit such cases to
proceed.
As the Cold War-era U.S. trade embargo against Cuba persisted, the Cuban government hailed
Biden’s announcement last week as a step in the “right direction,” but said that the United
States was still engaging in “economic warfare” against the island.
Human rights organizations, the European Union, and the United States had denounced Cuba’s
response to the protests as oppressive and oppressive, and many, if not all, of the prisoners
freed last week had been arrested in connection with the largest anti-government
demonstrations since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, which occurred in July 2021.
