WASHINGTON, United States
The Joe Biden administration
announced Wednesday that it will remove Cuba from
the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) and take other goodwill actions.
Cubans lining up to enter the US embassy in Havana, after consular services severely dipped under the first Trump administration
Cuban President Miguel
Diaz-Canel followed the news with an announcement about his
government's plans to free 553 political prisoners.
The Catholic Church had been
negotiating with the communist-run government over the release of prisoners,
most of whom were jailed following massive nationwide protests in 2021.
The 2021 protests were driven
by blackouts and soaring food prices but the government responded
with a heavy hand.
The Cuban
Foreign Ministry said the government informed Pope Francis it will release
prisoners who had been convicted of different crimes.
The foreign ministry didn't
link the release of prisoners to the US decision but said it was "in the
spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by His
Holiness."
The determination shown
by Biden, however, can be reversed by President-elect Donald Trump when he
takes office on January 20.
Trump designated Cuba as a
state sponsor of terrorism — that triggers economic sanctions
— shortly before he left office in 2021.
President Obama had removed
the designation in 2015, a move that had been hailed as a
breakthrough in relations between Washington and Havana following Cold War-era
hostilities.
Biden's move to lift the SST
designation on Cuba might not hold because of the potential influence of
Marco Rubio, a Cuban American who is Trump's pick for secretary of
state. Rubio is the son of immigrants from Cuba and an outspoken critic of
the island's government.
Trump has also appointed
Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former White House National Security
Council aide and strong supporter of sanctions against Cuba, to be his
special envoy to Latin America.
Cuba's economy has
floundered in recent years, with COVID-19 and tough US sanctions
deepening the crisis.
The US also has a trade
embargo on Cuba that was first imposed after Fidel Castro seized power.
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