The Biden administration has signaled to Congress that it intends to revoke Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

But here's the twist: The move would only become legal with a Federal Register notice — which is likely to happen under President Joe Biden's successor, Donald Trump. appears poised to take a more hawkish approach to the Caribbean island nation.

This would mirror what Trump did to Biden at the end of his first Republican term, which was to put Cuba back on the terrorist list when a Federal Register notice was published on January 22, 2021, after Biden was inaugurated .

Now the ball is back in Trump's court. Given his rhetoric and past positions — particularly those of Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American politician who was Trump’s pick for secretary of state and has long been hostile to Cuba’s communist government — — The situation is likely to be this: - U.S. policy toward Cuba continues.

But that doesn’t have to be the case: The incoming administration has other sanctions options at its disposal that could pressure Havana without isolating the country from the international community.

a matter of time

The Biden administration’s move to delist Cuba should come as no surprise.

Cuba's decision in early 2024 to remove Havana from the list of "not fully cooperative" counterterrorism operations due to its counterterrorism efforts heralded a change in the name of terrorism.

Under the Biden administration, Cuba has been cooperating with U.S. law enforcement — primarily through engagement with the FBI and the multilateral agency Financial Action Task Force — to combat illicit financing, including the financing of terrorism.

But despite these efforts, it remains unlikely that the Biden administration will remove Cuba from the terrorism list before the November 2024 presidential election, especially given the need for Democrats to appear tough on security issues - a matter of particular concern. A key issue in Trump's campaign.

Add to that Florida politics — Cuban Americans are a significant electoral force in the state and tend to be strong supporters of putting Cuba on the terrorism list — and the change in name has become an electoral hand grenade.

Biden's move now would be less challenging because the next major federal election is two years away, when midterm elections for the House and Senate could decide control of the now slim legislative body.

Therefore, I believe that removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is unlikely to hinder Democratic congressional campaigns in late 2026.

Legal basis for delisting

Biden's move is not only politically insulating, it can also be said to be legally effective. Cuba meets the legal criteria to be removed from the list - just as it was when the Obama administration removed Cuba from the list in 2015.

To be eligible for delisting, the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism, where I worked and directed its terrorist designation efforts, had to certify that Cuba had not engaged in supporting acts of terrorism within the past six months; that the country's government had pledged not to engage in acts of support for terrorism again.

The Biden administration has apparently decided, as Obama did before, that Cuba will no longer support left-wing communist groups that the United States considers terrorists.

Cuba has a checkered history of supporting such groups. The organization was blacklisted by the United States in the early 1980s due to its actions in support of groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army. While the latter is engaged in long and sometimes uneasy peace talks with the Colombian government, the former has disbanded and was removed from the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2021.

I suspect Cuba's swing on the terrorist list is over.

In order for Trump to put Cuba back on the list, he would need Rubio's State Department to prove that Cuba has "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism."

Considering that the same group of civil servants with legal expertise just determined that Cuba no longer warrants inclusion on the list, this will require at least some creative legal interpretation by State Department and White House lawyers.

I believe it is likely that these lawyers would have been subject to political pressure to make a very different decision - a decision whose legal validity would certainly be called into question.

Trump may also threaten to add a new terrorist sponsor to the list to obtain concessions from Cuba on a series of unresolved bilateral issues between the United States and Cuba. For example, Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, was a Black Liberation Army activist who killed a New Jersey police officer in 1984 and escaped from prison. Cuba. As the U.S. government works to extradite Chesimard to the United States, her case remains a bone of contention between Cuba and the United States

Although Chesimard's case is not an example of Cuban-sponsored terrorism, State Department decisions on new listings and delistings have been related to non-terrorism issues in the past. For example, the George W. Bush administration excluded North Korea because of Pyongyang's pledge to halt its nuclear program and allow inspectors access to its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

A more targeted approach?

While the Biden administration's removal of Cuba from the list may temporarily warm U.S.-Cuba relations, Secretary-elect Rubio may take actions, including putting Cuba back on the list, to reverse that trajectory.

But rather than knee-jerk putting Cuba back on the list based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence of its support for terrorism, the Trump administration would be wise to focus on the Cuban government’s actual weaknesses — its atrocious human rights record, corruption, Kleptocracy and failed communism. An ideology that impoverishes the island.

Here, the Trump administration could deploy an array of non-terrorism-related sanctions tools that could focus on the Cuban politicians responsible for these policies rather than the people of the island as a whole.

These targeted measures will reduce the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Cuban people who are already suffering due to their government’s human rights and economic record.

The Biden administration's decision to remove Cuba from the terrorist list therefore offers a glimmer of hope to Cubans in need of outside support. For example, it makes it easier for U.S. banks to participate in a wider range of transactions that provide bread for Cubans. It could also increase tourism-related travel to Cuba.

Ultimately, in my view, any attempt by Trump to reverse Biden's decision is unlikely to achieve the regime change he desires. Instead, it only prolongs the suffering of Cubans as a whole.