White House Poised to Remove Cuba from Terror List, but Sanctions Will Stay in Place, Say Observers
The White House is reportedly preparing to remove Cuba from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list in the coming days ahead of a high-profile meeting between President Barack Obama and Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro at the Summit of the Americas. Obama will attend the event in Panama City from April 10-11, and this year’s summit will be the first to host a Cuban leader. A White House official confirmed that Obama spoke with Castro on the telephone on April 8, according to a pool report.
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Obama said on April 9 the State Department has completed its review for Cuban status on the list, but refused to comment on the contents of the recommendation. The review “is now forwarded to the White House. Our interagency team will go through the entire thing and then present it to me with a recommendation,” said Obama (here). “The one thing I will say is that throughout this process, our emphasis has been on the facts. So we want to make sure that given that this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that when we make those designations we’ve got strong evidence that, in fact, that’s the case.”
The removal is a critical step to normalizing relations with Cuba, said several sanctions lawyers in interviews. “Designation on this list is a significant barrier to the full normalization of relations,” said Farhad Alavi, a managing partner at Akrivis Law Group. “It effectively triggers sanctions and restrictions under various sanctions laws. There trade limitations that are commensurate with being designated on this list.”
The U.S. added Cuba to the list in 1982, three years after the list first appeared. Cuba is one of only four countries currently listed. The list restricts U.S. foreign assistance, bans defense exports and imposes controls on dual-use exports, among other restrictions (here). The U.S. recently removed both North Korea and Libya from the list. The indications of Cuban removal follow months of Obama administration moves to boost diplomacy and ease restrictions on U.S. exports to Cuba, as well as financial transactions with the country (see 1503280004).
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill responded to the reports of imminent removal with mixed reactions. Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Ben Cardin, D-Md., applauded the removal in an April 9 emailed statement. “The State Department's recommendation to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, the result of a months-long technical review, is an important step forward in our efforts to forge a more fruitful relationship with Cuba,” said Cardin.
But his predecessor as committee ranking member, Sen. Bob Menendez, aggressively hit back at the reports of removal (see 1504090018). Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, said mistreatment of Cuban dissidents at the Summit of the Americas “raises serious questions about the wisdom of revisiting diplomatic relations with Cuba and removing the country from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror while this dictatorship, which practices repression at home and supports violence throughout the region, continues to hold power (here).”
The terrorism listing is only a framework for imposing sanctions, and Cuban removal isn’t likely to spur immediate sanctions relief, said the sanctions lawyers. The terrorism listing is exclusive from specific, targeted sanctions from the Treasury and Commerce Departments, said Lizbeth Rodriguez-Johnson, a sanctions lawyer at Holland & Hart. “It’s not necessarily evidence that there will be normalization,” she said. “I would anticipate that the delisting, the removal from the list, won’t necessarily mean it’s going to result soon in the lifting of sanctions.”
The U.S. sanctions regime against Cuba is embodied in complex statutes and real normalization will require legislation, said the lawyers. Some lawmakers have recently called for the repeal of the Helms-Burton legislation that is the basis for the ongoing embargo on Cuba (see 1502170022). Obama administration efforts to slash trade restrictions can only achieve so much, said the lawyers. The Cuban removal “is an important and necessary ‘check the box,’” said sanctions lawyer Triplett Mackintosh, also with Hollard & Hart. “Most of the time the countries that are added to the list area are also part of more independent sanctions from the U.S., so the listing is kind of like the icing on the cake.” Once the White House formally recommends removal, it has to give Congress 45 days to reject the move or the designation will be eliminated, reports say (here).