{"id":30677,"date":"2023-12-18T13:20:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30677"},"modified":"2023-12-18T13:25:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:25:10","slug":"state-department-stuns-congress-saying-biden-is-not-even-reviewing-trumps-terror-designation-of-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/12\/18\/state-department-stuns-congress-saying-biden-is-not-even-reviewing-trumps-terror-designation-of-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"STATE DEPARTMENT STUNS CONGRESS, SAYING BIDEN IS NOT EVEN REVIEWING TRUMP\u2019S TERROR DESIGNATION OF CUBA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"People<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>People wave a Cuban flag as they march through the streets of Miami on July 11, 2022.\u00a0Photo: Chandan Khanna\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a rebuke to Obama\u2019s effort to normalize relations with Cuba, Biden is sticking with Trump\u2019s policy, even as a Cuban migrant crisis racks the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Grim<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

December 14 2023, 12:28 p.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AS ONE OF<\/strong> his final foreign policy acts as president, in January 2021 Donald Trump added Cuba to the list of \u201cState Sponsors of Terror,\u201d reversing<\/a> the Obama administration\u2019s 2015 determination that the designation was no longer appropriate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incoming Biden administration pledged to Congress it would start the process of overturning Trump\u2019s redesignation, which by statute requires a six-month review process. Yet in a private briefing last week on Capitol Hill, State Department official Eric Jacobstein stunned members of Congress by telling them that the department has not even begun the review process, according to three sources in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the briefing, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., inquired as to the status of the review. In order to remove Cuba from the list, statute requires at least a six-month review period. The news that the State Department had not even launched the review came as a surprise to McGovern and others in the room, and meant that the delisting couldn\u2019t occur before mid-2024 at the earliest. McGovern pressed Jacobstein, noting that Congress had previously been assured that a review was underway. Jacobstein, according to sources in the room, said that perhaps there had been some misunderstanding around a different review of sanctions policies that State was undertaking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they were prepared to respond to how upset members were,\u201d said one Democrat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. \u201cThey were furious.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the State Department, declined to comment on a closed-door meeting in Congress, and additionally declined to directly confirm or deny whether a review was ongoing. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to comment on the deliberative process as it relates to the status of any designation,\u201d said Patel. \u201cAny review of Cuba\u2019s status on the SST list \u2014 should one ever happen \u2014 would be based on the law and criteria established by Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGovern, however, had already been told that such a review was ongoing, according to multiple sources who heard directly from McGovern about the State Department\u2019s messaging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s refusal to even review Cuba\u2019s status marks a strong rebuke of one of the Obama administration\u2019s signature foreign policy achievements, the move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s rationale for redesignating Cuba as a sponsor of terror relied heavily on the country having hosted representatives from FARC and ELN, two armed guerrilla movements designated by the U.S. as terror groups. But in October 2022, Colombian President Gustavo Petro<\/a>, in a joint press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, noted that Colombia itself, in cooperation with the Obama administration, had asked Cuba to host the FARC and ELN members as part of peace talks. The move by the Trump administration was \u201can injustice,\u201d he said, and ought to be undone. \u201cIt is not us [Colombia] who must correct it, but it does need to be corrected,\u201d added Petro, himself a onetime guerrilla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it comes to Cuba,\u201d Blinken said at the press conference, \u201cand when it comes to the state sponsor of terrorism designation, we have clear laws, clear criteria, clear requirements, and we will continue as necessary to revisit those to see if Cuba continues to merit that designation.\u201d Blinken\u2019s public claim \u2014 \u201cwe will continue as necessary to revisit\u201d the designation \u2014 coupled with private assurances from the State Department left members of Congress certain that a review was underway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blinken was also asked about Cuba\u2019s status in a hearing in March 2023<\/a> and said that Cuba had yet to meet the requirements to be removed from the list. \u201cIn both of these instances the Secretary was reiterating what we\u2019ve said previously \u2014 should there be rescission of the SST status, it would need to be consistent with specific statutory criteria for rescinding a SST determination,\u201d Patel said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The terror designation makes it difficult for Cubans to do international business, crushing an already fragile economy. The U.S. hard-line approach to Cuba has coincided with a surge in desperate migration, with Cubans now making up a substantial portion of the migrants arriving at the southern border. Nearly 425,000 Cubans have fled for the United States<\/a> in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, shattering previous records. Instead of moving to stem the flow by focusing on root causes in Cuba, the Biden White House has been signaling support in recent days for Republican-backed border policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopes for a shift on Cuba policy have not just been fueled by the State Department\u2019s misleading pledges about a review, but also by a semi-public moment picked up by a hot mic ahead of the previous State of the Union, in which Biden approached New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, one of the chamber\u2019s leading Cuba hawks, and told him the two needed to chat. \u201cBob, I gotta talk to you about Cuba,\u201d Biden told him<\/a>. Menendez has since been indicted<\/a> as an alleged intelligence asset<\/a> of Egypt, and there is no indication the two have talked about Cuba. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTACT THE AUTHOR:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Grim<\/a>ryan.grim@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a>@ryangrim<\/a>on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People wave a Cuban flag as they march through the streets of Miami on July 11, 2022.\u00a0Photo: Chandan Khanna\/AFP via Getty Images In a rebuke to Obama\u2019s effort to normalize relations with Cuba, Biden is sticking with Trump\u2019s policy, even as a Cuban migrant crisis racks the border. Ryan Grim… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[388,1627,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30678,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30677\/revisions\/30678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}