Pompeo Weighs Plan to Place Cuba on U.S. Terrorism Sponsor List
The move would complicate any effort by the incoming Biden
administration to resume President Barack Obama’s thaw in relations with
Havana.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has three weeks left until the
inauguration to decide whether Cuba should be designated as a state
sponsor of terrorism.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has three weeks left until the
inauguration to decide whether Cuba should be designated as a state
sponsor of terrorism.Credit...Oliver Contreras for The New York Times
Michael Crowley <https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-crowley>Charlie
Savage <https://www.nytimes.com/by/charlie-savage>Eric Schmitt
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-schmitt>
ByMichael Crowley <https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-crowley>,Charlie
Savage <https://www.nytimes.com/by/charlie-savage>andEric Schmitt
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/eric-schmitt>
* Dec. 29, 2020
State Department officials have drawn up a proposal to designate Cuba as
a state sponsor of terrorism, a final-hour foreign policy move that
would complicate plans by the incoming Biden administration to relax
increased American pressure on Havana.
With three weeks left until Inauguration Day, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo must decide whether to sign off on the plan, according to two
U.S. officials, a move that would also serve as a thank-you to
Cuban-Americans and other anti-communist Latinos in Florida who strongly
supported President Trump and his fellow Republicans in the November
election.
It is unclear whether Mr. Pompeo has decided to move ahead with the
designation. But Democrats and foreign policy experts believe that Mr.
Trump and his senior officials are eager to find ways of constraining
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s initial months in office and to
make it more difficult for Mr. Biden to reverse Trump-era policies
abroad. In recent weeks, Trump officials have also sought to increase
American pressure and sanctions on China and Iran.
A finding that a country has “repeatedly provided support for acts of
international terrorism,” in the State Department’sofficial description
<https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/>of a state sponsor
of terrorism, automatically triggers U.S. sanctions against its
government. If added to the list, Cuba would join just three other
nations: Iran, North Korea and Syria.
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The Biden administration could move quickly to take Cuba back off the
list. But doing so would require more than the stroke of a presidential
pen. The State Department would have to conduct a formal review, a
process that might take several months.
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A State Department spokeswoman said the agency does not discuss
“deliberations or potential deliberations” regarding terrorism
designations. The White House did not provide a comment.
Democrats on Tuesday assailed the Cuba proposal, criticizing what they
called an 11th-hour foreign policy change that unfairly limits the
incoming Biden team.
“It’s another stunt by this president with less than 23 days to go,”
Representative Gregory W. Meeks, a New York Democrat who is the new
chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a telephone
interview.
“He’s trying to put handcuffs on the incoming administration,” Mr. Meeks
added.
The State Departmentremoved Cuba from its list of terrorism sponsors
<https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/us-removes-cuba-from-state-terrorism-list.html>in
2015, after President Barack Obamaannounced the normalization of
relations
<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/americas/us-cuba-relations.html>between
Washington and Havana for the first time since the country’s 1959
communist revolution, which he called a relic of the Cold War. In return
for pledges of political and social reform, Mr. Obama dropped economic
sanctions, relaxed restrictions on travel and trade, and reopened an
embassy in Havana for the first time in decades. In 2016, he becamethe
first American president to visit the island
<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/21/world/americas/obama-arrives-in-cuba.html>since
Calvin Coolidge.
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The Reagan administrationfirst added Cuba to the terrorism list in 1982
<https://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/27/world/us-said-to-favor-sale-of-f-16-jets-to-the-jordanians.html>for
supporting leftist insurgents in Latin America. During the Obama era,
the State Department cited it as a “safe haven” for Basque separatists
and Colombian rebels. But Obama administration officials eventually
concluded no terrorist threat was posed by the aging Basques, nor from
Colombian rebels who joined peace talks in Havana that led to a 2016
peace deal with Colombia’s government.
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Updated
Dec. 29, 2020, 6:45 p.m. ETDec. 29, 2020
Dec. 29, 2020
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They were also willing to accept that the Cuban government has harbored
some fugitives wanted in the United States, includingJoanne D. Chesimard
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/nyregion/christie-wants-president-to-demand-that-cuba-return-a-fugitive.html>,
73, a former member of the Black Liberation Army. Ms. Chesimard, who now
goes by the name Assata Shakur, remains on the F.B.I.’s list of most
wanted terrorists for killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.
In a potential preview of a re-listing, the State Departmentnotified
Congress
<https://www.state.gov/countries-certified-as-not-cooperating-fully-with-u-s-counterterrorism-efforts/>in
May that Cuba was among five countries it said were “not cooperating
fully” with American counterterrorism efforts — the first time since
2015 that Cuba had not been certified as doing so.
The notification cited Cuba’s refusal of a request by Colombia, an
American ally, to extradite 10 leaders of the country’s National
Liberation Army living in Havana after the group claimed responsibility
fora bombing of a Bogotá police academy
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/world/americas/colombia-bomb-bogota-bomb.html>in
January 2019 that killed 22 people.
But Democrats said the idea that Cuba presented a terrorist threat to
the outside world was a political fiction.
“This is complete nonsense. Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism,”
said Ben Rhodes, who as a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama
played a central role in brokering the administration’s deal with Havana.
Mr. Trump denounced the agreement as “terrible and misguided” and has
rolled back many of its provisions. During visits to southern Florida,
he boasted that he was standing up to communism in Latin America and
warned that Mr. Biden would not, a message that proved popular to
Cuban-Americans and other voters hostile to Havana.
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As a candidate, Mr. Bidenpledged to again change American policy
<https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/updated-2020-candidates-answer-10-questions-on-latin-america/>,
saying he would “promptly reverse the failed Trump policies that have
inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy
and human rights.”
Cuba’s repressive government has largely disappointed hopes that it
might liberalize after thedeath of its revolutionary leader, Fidel
Castro
<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/world/americas/fidel-castro-dies.html>,
in November 2016. Havana continues toarrest and detain
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/07/cuba-covid-19-rules-used-intensify-repression#>dissidents
and cracked down on arecent hunger strike
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/world/americas/cuba-protest-san-isidro.html>by
artists and other activists in the capital, evidence to many Republicans
that its government does not deserve cordial relations from Washington.
Trump administration officials have also been harshly critical of the
Cuban government’s support for Venezuela’s socialist leader, Nicolás
Maduro, whom Mr. Trump tried for years in vain to dislodge from power.
In anopinion essay
<https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article247764955.html>published
this month in The Miami Herald, Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of
Florida and an influential voice on Cuba policy, urged Mr. Biden to
“stand with the dissidents” there and urged him not to “return to a
one-sided Cuba policy — and throw a lifeline to Raúl Castro’s
dictatorial regime.”
U.S. officials said the plan to restore Cuba to the terrorism sponsor
list was developed, in a break from standard process, by the State
Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and not its
Counterterrorism Bureau, which would typically play a central role in
such a decision.
Mr. Rhodes called that evidence of a politically motivated process.
“This is a sign that they know they can’t get Cuba on the list on the
merits,” he said.
Critics say the Trump administration has begun politicizing such
designations, which are meant to be a matter of national security. This
month, the United Statesremoved Sudan
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/world/middleeast/sudan-us-terrorism-sponsors-list.html>from
its list of terrorist sponsors days before the African nation joined the
list of Arab nations that have established diplomatic relations with
Israel, a top priority for Mr. Trump.
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The Trump administration has recently cracked down on Cuban companies
run by or affiliated with the Cuban military. Last week, the Treasury
Departmentblacklisted three such businesses
<https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1217>.
Arecent report
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/business/economy/havana-syndrome-microwave-attack.html>commissioned
by the State Department found that U.S. embassy personnel in Havana were
sickened in 2016 by what was most likely a microwave weapon of unknown
origins. Cuba’s government has denied any knowledge of such attacks.
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