Biden's Failed Cuba Policy

As they have done on so many other issues like this, the Biden administration kept the Trump-era policy in place.

The Trump administration designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism in 2021 in one of its last-minute moves to spite their successors. More than two and a half years later, Ryan Grim reports that the Biden administration hasn’t started the review process that should lead to a reversal:

The incoming Biden administration pledged to Congress it would start the process of overturning Trump’s 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.

The Trump administration designation had no justification. The Cuban government hasn’t sponsored terrorist groups for decades, and the Obama administration took them off the list in recognition of that fact. Trump’s move to put them back on the list was a sop to hardliners and a way to make it harder for the next administration to change course on Cuba policy. As they have done on so many other issues like this, the Biden administration kept the Trump-era policy in place even though they must have known that nothing had changed since 2015.