Trump Reverses Biden Move: Puts Cuba Back On Terrorism List
Amidst a flurry of first-day White House directives, President Trump has reversed last week’s decision by the Biden administration to remove Cuba from the State Department list of states that support terrorism. In a sweeping executive order issued the evening of January 20, titled “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” President Trump revoked Former President Biden’s Presidential Memorandum of January 14, among dozens of other Biden-era directives.
The new Trump administration also reinstated the so-called “Cuba Restricted List” that Biden had rescinded last week. The list, imposed during the first Trump administration in November 2017, blocks U.S. financial transactions with Cuban agencies, entities and businesses administered by the Cuban military.
The Biden administration’s 11th-hour decision to certify that Cuba is not involved in international terrorism was part of an accord mediated by the Vatican and the Cuban Catholic church to provide incentives for the Cuban government to release more than 550 prisoners—many of them detained after violent street protests in July 2021 against shortages of medicines and basic goods during the Covid pandemic. Pursuant to that agreement brokered by Pope Francis, over the last six days the Cuban government of Miguel Díaz-Canel has released 130 prisoners, including one of Cuba’s leading dissidents, Jose Daniel Ferrer.
It is unclear if the phased prisoner release will continue.
The list, which currently includes only three other nations—Iran, North Korea and Syria—was first created by the State Department in 1979 to impose financial sanctions on countries that have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” In 1982, President Reagan put Cuba on the list to penalize Fidel Castro’s government for supporting revolutionary movements in Central America. In 2015, the Obama administration reviewed Cuba’s designation on the list as part of the agreement to normalize relations between Washington and Havana, concluding that there was “no evidence” that Cuba supported international terrorism.
But just before leaving office in January 2021, Trump re-designated Cuba as a supporter of international terrorism, claiming that Cuba was harboring U.S. fugitives and guerilla leaders from Colombia. Until last week, the Biden administration made no effort to reverse that designation, although in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May 2024, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken conceded that there was no evidence to support Cuba being on the list.
Cuba’s inclusion on the list has impeded normal banking and commercial transactions, as lending institutions and businesses fear U.S. penalties mandated by the terrorism designation. Being on the SSOT list has also cost Cuba’s tourism-based economy because it discourages tourist travel from dozens of major countries which have visa-waiver agreements with the United States. International travelers to any of the four countries on the list lose their ability to obtain a visa-waiver for travel to the United States.
In a Facebook post, Cuban President Díaz-Canel called Trump’s decision "an act of arrogance and disregard for truth." On X, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla tweeted that the redesignation "will cause harm, but it won't subdue the firm determination of our people.”
