NEW: Biden Removes State Sponsor Of Terrorism Designation From Cuba

President Biden is set to notify Congress that he will be lifting the state sponsor of terrorism designation applied to the communist government of Cuba, the White House announced. The major move — which comes during Biden’s final week in the White House — comes as part of a deal facilitated by the Catholic Church aimed at freeing political prisoners, according to a report from the Associated Press,

Multiple “senior U.S.administration officials,” who spoke on the condition, told the AP that “many dozens” of political prisoners and additional people who have been unjustly detained by the Cuban regime would be released during the final hours of the Biden Administration on January 20. The U.S. would also ease economic pressure on the island nation, while President Biden would rescind a 2017, Trump-issued memorandum that outlined a more aggressive posture towards Cuba. A separate source told CNN that the plan is very much in motion, noting that an “assessment has been completed, and we do not have information that supports Cuba’s designation.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated Cuba’s government in January 2021, stating that Havana was “providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists.” The state sponsor of terrorism designation came after Cuba refused to extradite members of a Colombian militant organization that claimed responsibility for a 2019 bombing that killed 22 people and injured 87 others at a Bogotá police academy in 2017.

President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden announce that the U.S. will be reopening its embassy in Havana in 2015

Obama meets with then-Cuban dictator Raul Castro in 2015

Biden’s last-minute gift to the Cuban government is a move that follows in the footsteps of President Barack Obama, who took several steps towards normalizing U.S. relations with the nation’s communist neighbor. Starting in 2014, Obama began a normalization process with the Cuban regime in a deal that eased some U.S. travel restrictions, re-opened the nation’s embassy in Havana, as well as the Cuban government’s embassy in Washington D.C., and eased financial restrictions placed on the regime. Obama ultimately traveled to Havana and met with Raul Castro, the younger brother of Fidel Castro, and attended a baseball game with him in 2016.

The move was criticized by Republicans at the time, who argued that Obama was legitimizing an authoritarian, murderous regime without getting any guarantees of reform or access to free and fair elections for the Cuban people. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), whose father is a Cuban exile, was highly critical of Obama’ visit at the time, calling it “so sad, and so injurious to our future as well as Cuba’s, that Obama has chosen to legitimize the corrupt and oppressive Castro regime with his presence on the island.”

In response to President Biden’s plan to remove the state sponsor of terrorism designation from Cuba, Cruz accused Biden of the same conduct of his former boss and urged President-elect Trump to reverse the deal when he is inaugurated next week. “Today’s decision is unacceptable on its merits,” the Texas senator said in a statement. “The terrorism advanced by the Cuban regime has not ceased. I will work with President Trump and my colleagues to immediately reverse and limit the damage from the decision.”

Cuba was first designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1982, though former President Obama removed it as part of the “Cuban Thaw” initiative in 2015. Cuba has been one of just four nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism, the others being Iran, North Korea and Syria.

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