In a rebuke to Obama’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba, Biden is sticking with Trump’s policy, even as a Cuban migrant crisis racks the border.
As one of his final foreign policy acts as president, in January 2021 Donald Trump added Cuba to the list of “State Sponsors of Terror,” reversing the Obama administration’s 2015 determination that the designation was no longer appropriate.
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.
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.
“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.”
…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.
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Article URL : https://theintercept.com/2023/12/14/cuba-terror-biden-state-department/