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Biden’s package includes three measures: (1) It rescinded Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 5, of June 16, 2017, the basic framework for Trump’s policy of regime change; (2) It suspends Title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.
Hellbound and Down 