Less than a week before leaving the White House, President Joe Biden is lifting the state sponsor of terrorism designation for Cuba, nearly four years to the day from when then-President Donald Trump, in one of his own last acts in office, put Havana back on the list. The Cuban government is “concurrently” expected to free “a significant number of political prisoners” under an agreement it has made with the Catholic Church, including an unspecified number “before the end of the Biden administration on Jan. 20,” said a senior Biden...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden notified Congress of his plans to remove Cuba from the United States' list of state sponsors of terror, in a move the outgoing administration says is meant to help facilitate the release of political prisoners. The administration said Tuesday that it had completed an assessment and did not find information that supports the designation. An administration official who briefed reporters said Biden made the decision with the understanding that the Catholic Church was advancing an agreement with Cuba that would allow for the humanitarian release...

Pursuant to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, and consistent with sections 1754(c) and 1768(c) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (50 U.S.C. 4813(c) and 4826(c)), I hereby certify with respect to the rescission of the determination of January 12, 2021, regarding Cuba that: (i) The Government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding 6-month period; and (ii) The Government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future....

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) in exchange for the release of political prisoners jailed for protesting against the regime in July 2021. The Trump administration placed the SST designation on Cuba in the last week of the president-elect’s first term, and Biden officials said they are in contact with the Trump transition team over their action. “This issue is among the issues on which they’ve been in communication,” a senior administration official said in a...

The Biden administration is preparing to announce it will lift Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, according to reports, triggering an angry wave of condemnation from Republicans. Sen. Ted Cruz promised to work with Donald Trump's incoming administration to immediately reverse the expected move. 'Obama-Biden officials are continuing their legacy of closing out administrations with rank appeasement of the Cuban regime,' he said.

In a last-minute decision driven by the White House, the State Department on Tuesday removed Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, despite earlier assurances that it would not do so, a source with knowledge of the decision told the Miami Herald. The decision will be officially announced later on Tuesday. Cuba was included in the blacklist as one of the last policy decisions made by the Trump administration in 2020, citing Cuba’s harboring of Colombian terrorists and Americans fleeing justice. But the Cuban government had been actively...