Follow us on social

Exit stage left: Biden's curious Cuba move

Exit stage left: Biden's curious Cuba move

The timing of his decision to lift the terror designation looks like mere nose-thumbing at Trump, though it may help Havana more than you think

Latin America

President Joe Biden’s January 14 removal of sanctions imposed on Cuba during the first Trump administration could have been a major step toward restarting Barack Obama’s policy of engagement if Biden had done it in his first week as president instead of his last.

But done at the last minute, they are unlikely to have much impact. Two of the three will not even take effect until after Trump’s inauguration.

Senior members of Trump’s incoming foreign policy team, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy for Latin America Maurico Claver-Carone, have criticized Biden’s actions, noting that they can be quickly and easily reversed by the incoming administration.

“No one should be under any illusion in terms of a change in Cuba policy," Waltz said.

Nevertheless, within hours of the White House’s announcement, the Cuban government announced that, in response to appeals from the Vatican, it would gradually release 553 prisoners, many of whom were involved in the nationwide protests on July 11, 2021. The deal was the culmination of three years of Vatican shuttle diplomacy.

Biden’s package includes three measures: (1) It rescinded Trump's National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 5, of June 16, 2017, the basic framework for Trump’s policy of regime change; (2) It suspends Title III of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which gives U.S. citizens, including naturalized Cuban Americans, whose property was nationalized by Cuba’s revolutionary government the right to sue in U.S. Federal Court anyone making beneficial use of that property; and (3) It initiated removal of Cuba from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of International Terrorism.

Trump’s 2017 NSPM included several sanctions limiting travel to Cuba and, most importantly, prohibiting doing business with Cuban companies managed by the armed forces, including many of the hotels where U.S. visitors typically stayed. However, Biden’s recission of NSPM-5 does not reopen those hotels to U.S. visitors because another, separate, sanction imposed by Trump in 2020 prohibits U.S. visitors from staying in any hotel owned by the Cuban government. That prohibition remains in place.

A suspension of Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act only takes effect 15 days after the president notifies Congress of his intention to suspend it, in this case, on January 29. President Trump could either lift the suspension, like he did in 2019, or simply wait six months at which time the suspension will expire automatically unless renewed.

In Congressional testimony on May 22, 2024, Secretary of State Tony Blinken admitted that there was no factual basis for Cuba being designated a state sponsor of terrorism, and that the reasons cited in the State Department’s annual report on terrorism were no longer valid. When the administration finally undertook a formal review of Cuba’s designation, it concluded— predictably—that Cuba should be removed from the list.

But Cuba’s removal does not take effect for 45 days, giving Congress and the Trump administration plenty of time to block it. The Republican majority in Congress can vote to nullify Biden’s action or Trump can simply put Cuba back on the list at his discretion — just as he did in January 2021.

Moreover, even if Biden’s measures survive long enough to take effect, no company, U.S. or foreign, is going to invest the time and resources necessary to take advantage of reduced sanctions when there is a better than even chance that President Trump will reverse them sooner or later, just as he reversed Obama’s in 2017.

So why would the Biden administration bother to take such ineffectual and probably ephemeral steps to reduce sanctions, and why would the Cuban government release more than five hundred prisoners in response?

Winning freedom for the prisoners was obviously the main motivation for Biden, but for years the administration was loathe to engage Cuba in negotiations to free them. However, after Bob Menendez’s departure from the Senate, the Democrats’ loss in November, and the ruby red hue of Florida politics, Biden no longer had any reason to subordinate Cuba policy to domestic politics.

Perhaps entreaties from both Congressional Democrats and the Vatican that Biden do something to alleviate the deepening humanitarian crisis on the island finally broke through. Or perhaps there was some guilty pleasure in complicating Trump’s forthcoming Cuba policy — poetic justice for Trump putting Cuba on the terrorism list as a parting shot just days before Biden’s inauguration in 2020.

Cuban officials were equally resistant to freeing the protestors, whose tough prison sentences served as a warning and deterrent against future protests. Yet they agreed, despite there being slim chance that Cuba will gain any economic relief from Biden’s measures. But even in the worst case — that Trump scuttles all of Biden’s measures immediately — Cuba would still reap some political benefit. By releasing so many political prisoners — the most since the 1970s — Havana addresses a major point of friction in its relations with the European Union, an important source of desperately needed humanitarian assistance.

Havana’s prisoner release demonstrates to the international community at large its willingness to compromise and desire to reduce conflict with Washington. It puts the United States government on record acknowledging that Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism. And it puts the Trump administration in the awkward position of having to choose between leaving the new measures in place or reneging on an agreement to release 553 people from jail.

President Biden’s four years in the White House were a colossal missed opportunity in U.S.-Cuban relations — four years in which domestic political aspirations overrode foreign policy interests, advancing neither. And the Cuban people paid the price as Washington stood idly by while their standard of living plummeted, partly as a result of sanctions Trump imposed and Biden left in place.

Barack Obama took bold action to normalize relations with Cuba. Donald Trump took bold action to destabilize it. Nothing about Joe Biden’s Cuba policy was bold, and it accomplished nothing. Cuba is poorer and less open today than it was four years ago, China’s and Russia’s influence there is greater, a million more Cuban migrants have fled to the United States, and Democrats are less politically popular than ever in Florida.

As Joe Biden leaves the White House, there are many accomplishments he can be proud of. Cuba is not one of them.


Top photo credit: Miami, Florida. JULY 11, 2021: Cuban exiles rally at Versailles Restaurant in Miami's Little Havana in support of protesters in Cuba. (Shutterstock/FErnando Medina)
Latin America
US Marines
Top image credit: U.S. Marines with Force Reconnaissance Platoon, Maritime Raid Force, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepare to clear a room during a limited scale raid exercise at Sam Hill Airfield, Queensland, Australia, June 21, 2025. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Alora Finigan)

Cartels are bad but they're not 'terrorists.' This is mission creep.

Military Industrial Complex

There is a dangerous pattern on display by the Trump administration. The president and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth seem to hold the threat and use of military force as their go-to method of solving America’s problems and asserting state power.

The president’s reported authorization for the Pentagon to use U.S. military warfighting capacity to combat drug cartels — a domain that should remain within the realm of law enforcement — represents a significant escalation. This presents a concerning evolution and has serious implications for civil liberties — especially given the administration’s parallel moves with the deployment of troops to the southern border, the use of federal forces to quell protests in California, and the recent deployment of armed National Guard to the streets of our nation’s capital.

keep readingShow less
Howard Lutnick
Top photo credit: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC, 8/26/25 (CNBC screengrab)

Is nationalizing the defense industry such a bad idea?

Military Industrial Complex

The U.S. arms industry is highly consolidated, specialized, and dependent on government contracts. Indeed, the largest U.S. military contractors are already effectively extensions of the state — and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is right to point that out.

His suggestion in a recent media appearance to partially nationalize the likes of Lockheed Martin is hardly novel. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith argued for the nationalization of the largest military contractors in 1969. More recently, various academics and policy analysts have advocated for partial or full nationalization of military firms in publications including The Nation, The American Conservative, The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and The Seattle Journal for Social Justice.

keep readingShow less
Modi Trump
Top image credit: White House, February 2025

Trump's India problem could become a Global South crisis

Asia-Pacific

As President Trump’s second term kicked off, all signs pointed to a continued upswing in U.S.-India relations. At a White House press conference in February, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of his vision to “Make India Great Again” and how the United States under Trump would play a central role. “When it’s MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes a mega partnership for prosperity,” Modi said.

During Trump’s first term, the two populist leaders hosted rallies for each other in their respective countries and cultivated close personal ties. Aside from the Trump-Modi bromance, U.S.-Indian relations have been on a positive trajectory for over two decades, driven in part by mutual suspicion of China. But six months into his second term, Trump has taken several actions that have led to a dramatic downturn in U.S.-India relations, with India-China relations suddenly on the rise.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.