Photo: Activists protest in Washington DC, to urge Biden to take Cuba off State Sponsors of Terrorism list (by Craig Birchfield).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Republic of Plaestine<\/a><\/em> replicates this article published today January 14, 2025 in People\u2019s Dispatch<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden removes Cuba from the US\u2019s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in his final days as President<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n United States President Biden has announced that he will remove Cuba from the US\u2019s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in his final days as President, reversing Donald Trump\u2019s addition of Cuba to the list in 2021. The Biden administration said on Tuesday, January 14<\/a>, that this move is meant to facilitate the release of individuals detained in Cuba. \u201cI transmit herewith a report to the Congress with respect to the proposed recission of Cuba\u2019s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,\u201d Biden announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Countries are added to the US\u2019s State Sponsors of Terrorism list by the State Department that have allegedly \u201crepeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism\u201d. In practice, however, those countries included on the list\u2014Cuba, North Korea, Syria, and Iran\u2014are all nations that have refused to toe the US line on foreign policy, while highly controversial nations such as Saudi Arabia are excluded from such a list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuba\u2019s designation on this list had meant that the US could apply several types of unilateral sanctions to the island, and also has the added unofficial effects of ostracizing the socialist nation from potential trading partners, who fear incurring the US\u2019s wrath. This results in shortages of key goods, such as fuel, the cause of multiple humanitarian crises<\/a>. According to the advocacy organization the Washington Office for Latin America<\/a>, \u201cFearful of being accused of abetting terror and the mammoth fines<\/a> that an infraction entails, most banks refuse to process Cuban payments and have frozen funds for permitted religious and humanitarian activities, requiring additional licensing.\u201d Cuba\u2019s designation on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list exacerbated the devastation caused by the sweeping blackouts last year<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Cuba was added to this list at the end of Donald Trump\u2019s first term. For nearly his entire four years as President, Biden had done nothing to change this designation, despite growing pressure within the United States and across the world for the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On December 5, a coalition of elected officials, labor leaders, and organizations across the United States issued a joint call<\/a> to demand that President Biden take Cuba off of the SSOT list. These included New York State Senators Jabari Brisport, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and Julia Salazar, as well as Minnesota State Senator Sandra Pappas, Massachusetts State Representative Erika Uyterhoeven, Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Nate Baker of the Durham, North Carolina City Council. Labor leaders and trade unions also signed on, including United Auto Workers, the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, and the Committee of Interns & Residents, a local of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as well as Dr. Brima Sylla, Vice President of Amazon Labor Union IBT, Ali Fuhrman, the President of AFSCME Local 2822, and Anica Walls, the President of the Public Sector Employees of California, SEIU Local 1000.<\/p>\n\n\n\nState Sponsors of Terrorism list<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOff the list!\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n