In surprise move, State Department removes Cuba from list of state sponsors of terrorism

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Jan 14, 2025

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In a last-minute decision driven by the White House, the State Department on Tuesday removed Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, despite earlier assurances that it would not do so, a source with knowledge of the decision told the Miami Herald.

The decision will be officially announced later on Tuesday.

Cuba was included in the blacklist as one of the last policy decisions made by the Trump administration in 2020, citing Cuba’s harboring of Colombian terrorists and Americans fleeing justice.

But the Cuban government had been actively wielding a campaign to get removed from the list, enlisting regional presidents, like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and former Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to lobby President Joe Biden on their behalf.

In a recent push, several former left-leaning presidents from the Americas and Spain, former U.S. diplomats, former President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers who favor engagement with the Cuban government urged Biden to remove Cuba from the list to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the island’s population and to attemo to curb migration to the U.S., which has reached historic proportions.