THE AMERICASRemoving Cuba from List of Countries ‘Not Fully Cooperating’ Over Terrorism May Presage Wider Rapprochement – If Politics Allows
The U.S. State Department removed Cuba from its list of countries “not fully cooperating” with anti-terrorism efforts in mid-May 2024, but you would be forgiven for not noticing. Despite the low-key nature of the announcement, taking Cuba off the list is a big deal. The move is a potential step toward a rapprochement between Washington and Havana.
The U.S. State Department removed Cuba from its list of countries “not fully cooperating” with anti-terrorism efforts in mid-May 2024, but you would be forgiven for not noticing.
There was little fanfare accompanying the news: no press release, and no public acknowledgment from President Joe Biden.
Rather, the decision was relayed via a department spokesperson who rather dryly explained that, “the circumstances for Cuba’s certification as a ‘not fully cooperating country’ have changed from 2022 to 2023.”
Despite the low-key nature of the announcement, taking Cuba off the list is a big deal. As an expert in counterterrorism and a former State Department official who directed the government’s counterterrorism sanction initiatives, I see the latest move as a potential step toward a rapprochement between Washington and Havana.
Delisting Cuba
With Cuba’s removal, only North Korea, Iran, Syria and Venezuela remain on the list, which was adopted in the 1990s. While being named a “not fully cooperating country” has few legal consequences, it gives pause to people, companies and countries that otherwise might be looking to do business with those states.
In some ways, the State Department announcement on dropping Cuba from the list is lagging behind actual practice.
U.S.-Cuba engagement on law enforcement issues is already going on, having restarted in 2023.
And on Feb. 7, 2024, officials from both countries attended a meeting of the U.S.-Cuba Law Enforcement Dialogue, which promotes cooperation between the two nations’ police – the sixth such meeting since 2015.
That February meeting made it all the more likely that Cuba would be removed from the “not fully cooperating” list, which is, by law, reviewed every year. The question now is what that means for Cuba’s status in the U.S. as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” or SST – could that also be under review?
Unlike the “not fully cooperating” list, there is no requirement to review who is named a state sponsor of terrorism, either yearly or at any time.
On and Off and On Again
Cuba has yo-yoed on and off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The communist island nation was first designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1982 by the Reagan administration. Cuba’s support for left-wing militant groups like Colombia’s FARC and National Liberation Army (ELN) in the 1980s was cited by U.S. officials as justification for its listing.
