Biden’s olive branch to Cuba may not bear fruit

In a surprise last-second move, President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday his administration will remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List (SSOT).

In addition, Biden suspended Title III, a controversial law that had stifled foreign investment to Cuba, and he eliminated a “restricted list” of Cuban entities with which U.S. citizens and companies are prohibited from doing business.

The moves, which would have been momentous for U.S.-Cuba relations if they had come four years earlier, could soon be rendered meaningless.

“I would remind anyone on this recent deal with Cuba that just happened over the last 12 hours, nothing that was agreed to is irreversible or binding on the new administration,” soon-to-be Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “I think people know my feelings, and I think they know what the president’s feelings have been about these issues when he was president previously.”

When asked if Cuba was a state sponsor of terrorism, Rubio responded: “Without a question.”

Too little, too late?

There is “no credible evidence at this time of ongoing support by Cuba of international terrorism,” said a senior Biden administration official at a background press briefing on Tuesday.

There was also no credible evidence that Cuba supported terrorism when Trump put it on the list eight days before he left office.

Biden, who as vice-president had been a part of Obama’s historic rapprochement with the island, was expected to revoke the terror designation.

Instead, he ignored calls to remove Cuba from the SSOT list that came from across the political spectrum – including the UN, former top U.S. officials and members of his own party – until now.

The Biden administration described Cuba’s terror de-listing and the other two moves as “unilateral steps,” but they appear to have been a quid pro quo. A Biden official said he expected the measures would lead to the release of “the many dozens of Cubans arrested in connection with the July 2021 protests.”

Later on Tuesday, Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel posted on X that his country was taking the “unilateral and sovereign decision” to release “553 people sanctioned for a variety of crimes.”

Both Cuba and the U.S. said the Catholic Church had played a central role in securing the release of the prisoners.

“It’s a positive event,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban diplomat. “Unfortunately it might have come too little too late.”

Besides removing Cuba from the terrorism list, the Biden administration also suspended Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. Title III allows U.S. claimants whose property was nationalized during the Cuban Revolution to sue companies for doing business on that property. 

Dozens of lawsuits were filed against U.S. and European companies after Trump activated Title III in 2019. The lawsuits served as a deterrent to investors afraid of being dragged into U.S. courts, further isolating Cuba.

Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, Title III, and the raft of other sanctions imposed by Trump and maintained by Biden, have devastated Cuba’s economy and fueled unprecedented migration to the United States.

Hardliners React

The two key figures who shaped Trump’s Cold War-era policy during his first term are back for the sequel.

Joining Rubio at the State Department as special envoy for Latin America is Mauricio Claver-Carone, another Cuban-American hardliner from Florida who played a central role in devising some of the harshest sanctions against Cuba.

"The Biden administration might see this as an 'F You' to Rubio, but we'll get the last laugh," Claver-Carone told Axios.

However, Claver-Carone indicated a reversal of Biden’s moves may not be immediate. 

“There’s a process, so it will take time, but in the meantime we can take other measures that will have even greater impact,” he told the New York Times.

Claver-Carone said sanctions against Cuba would be "bigger and harder, with broader effects than last time," according to Axios.

Rubio and Claver-Carone will count on the support of fellow Cuban-American hardliners from Florida in a Republican-controlled Congress.

“We’re going to be reminding Trump of [Cuba’s terror list removal] on Monday when he takes office,” said Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) in a video posted on X along with Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) and Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL). “Trump can reverse that the following week, so maybe the Cubans will have a very short party and it is only a couple of weeks off the list of terrorist countries.”

Immediate Reversal?

According to William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University and an expert on U.S.-Cuba relations, Trump can reverse the terrorism list designation and the Title III suspension any time.

“The Title III suspension and removing Cuba from the terrorism list won't even go into effect until after Trump's inauguration. Both can be reversed by Trump on Monday,” said LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University and an expert on U.S.-Cuba relations. “These would have been great moves in the first week of the Biden administration rather than the last.”

The same goes for the restricted entities list, although the Trump administration “may want to wait and craft a new set of regulations that go beyond what they did in 2017 and that would take several months,” said LeoGrande.

Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick to be national security advisor, seemed to indicate support for Biden’s deal. 

"We don't like it, but again, if people are going free, then that's what it is for now,” Waltz told Fox News.

Even if Trump does not immediately reverse Biden’s moves, it is not expected they will have an impact any time soon. Foreign banks and companies wary of engaging with Cuba are unlikely to change their mind with Rubio and Claver-Carone running Latin America policy and without a clear sign that the U.S. government’s hard-line policy toward Cuba will change.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embargo against Cuba remains firmly in place.

“If the decision to take Cuba off the terror list is kept by the Trump administration, it would be a significant win for Cuba,” said Alzugaray. “But it doesn’t change the basic problem: the economic war that the United States carries out against Cuba.”