By The American Conservative (World News) | Created at 2025-01-14 22:35:08 | Updated at 2025-01-15 04:48:21
6 hours ago
Politics
State of the Union: The move is part of a deal to free political prisoners in Cuba.
The Biden administration notified Congress Tuesday that it intends to revoke Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism as part of an agreement which will free a number of political prisoners on the island.The U.S. will also end certain restrictions on economic interactions with Cuba that have been in place since the first Trump administration.
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The agreement, which was facilitated by the Catholic Church, will result in dozens of people held by the Cuban government being released from jail, a government official said.
This marks a step back towards the normalization of relations with the communist country that was begun by Barack Obama in 2015. President Obama announced that he intended to end the American embargo on Cuba and restore the relationship between the two countries, but that ended abruptly with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. A similar fate is likely to befall the Biden administration’s efforts with Donald Trump’s second election last year.
While the Trump transition team has not commented on the announcement, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, has a history of hostility towards the island’s communist government. The Cuban-American population, which is deeply opposed to loosening sanctions on the country, is also an important Republican constituency in the state of Florida.
