WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden will relax sanctions targeting long-time foe Cuba days before Donald Trump takes office in a broad set of steps on Tuesday that he expects to lead to release of political prisoners in Havana.
As part of the steps, Biden is reversing several hardline restrictions put in place by Trump, his predecessor and the president-elect. Those steps include notifying Congress of plans to lift the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and undoing a Trump order that had restricted some financial transactions with some military and government-tied Cubans, according to a senior administration official.
Biden was also set to suspend the ability of individuals to use U.S. courts to make claims for potentially confiscated property in Cuba following Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, the official said.
The steps were connected to the expected release by Cuba of a “significant” number of political prisoners, following the communist-run government’s talks with the Catholic Church.
Cuba faced sharp criticism from rights groups, the United States and the European Union following the imprisonment of hundreds of protesters after riots on July 11, 2021, the largest since Castro’s revolution.
The announcements, just days before Biden leaves office, mark his first real break in policy from Trump-era sanctions that have contributed to one of Cuba’s worst economic crises.
Trump may seek to revive the sanctions once in office.
But in the short term, Biden’s new measures were expected to give Havana more space to maneuver as it battles a crippling economic crisis.
Trump placed Cuba on the U.S. State Sponsor of Terrorism list in 2021 in the final hours of his first term, saying Havana had repeatedly provided “support for acts of international terrorism” by harboring U.S. fugitives and Colombian rebel leaders.
Cuba denied the allegations, calling the designation a farce and seeking removal from the list, which carries a prohibition on U.S. economic aid, a ban on U.S. arms exports and enough geopolitical downside to keep even Cuba’s closest allies leery of doing business with the island.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey in Washington and Dave Sherwood in Havana; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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