Is Joe Biden’s Cuba Move Too Little, Too Late?
Yesterday Joe Biden announced Cuba’s removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and eased sanctions against the country. Donald Trump may soon undo the progress.
President Joe Biden delivers a speech about his foreign policy achievements in the Ben Franklin Room at the State Department’s Harry S. Truman headquarters building on January 13, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In a surprise move, President Joe Biden announced yesterday that his administration will remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List. 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 that included dozens of hotels.
The moves, which would have been momentous for US-Cuba relations if they had come four years earlier, could soon be rendered meaningless.
“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 William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University and an expert on US-Cuba relations. “These would have been great moves in the first week of the Biden administration rather than the last.”
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