Call to action: Biden must end the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism

Ignacio Ramonet, academician and former editor of Le Monde diplomatique, has written an open letter to President Joe Biden. It offers nations, organizations, and individuals a golden moment for getting rid of a critical piece of the U.S. system of economic blockade of Cuba. Ramonet argues in the strongest possible terms that the U.S. President must end the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism (SSOT) and do it now.

Ramonet, originally from Spain, has long lived and worked in Paris, where he prepared. He teaches at Paris Diderot University and formally at the Sorbonne. In 2006, Ramonet praised Fidel Castro’s legacy in a series of articles in Foreign Policy journal. His book My Life: A Spoken Autobiography, written with Fidel Castro, appeared in the same year. It’s based on more than 100 hours of interviews with Castro.

The Casa de las Americas in Havana has sent out to the world an invitation for any and all to endorse Ramonet’s letter. Casa says:

“Our dear friend Ignacio Ramonet sent us this open letter to the President of the United States. Casa de las Americas supports this noble initiative and invites writers, artists, cultural promoters, academics, activists and social fighters, members of non-governmental organizations, and people sensitive to the daily suffering of the Cuban people to support it with their signatures.”

“Cuba’s income per person is probably 1/3 or 1/4 of what it would be without the bloqueo,” writes economist Jeffrey Sachs. The SSOT designation does its bit toward assuring that grim outcome. It provides for penalties against international financial institutions that handle Cuba’s borrowing and commercial transactions overseas, ones that involve dollars, which is usually the case.

Now is a crucial time. The SSOT designation is the one part of the far-reaching U.S. system of sanctions and commercial blockade that does not require action by the U.S. Congress to end or modify it. The U.S. president has sole responsibility for either authorizing or withdrawing the SSOT designation.

President Donald Trump reinstated the designation on January 12, 2021, within days of leaving office. President Obama had removed it in 2015. Right now, Biden could remove Cuba from that list of supposedly terrorist-sponsoring nations before a new president is installed, and without pain. The inevitable howls of outrage from defenders of U.S. domination of Cuba will bother neither him–who will be gone–nor the new administration–that was not there.

The point is that now is the time for a major campaign to persuade many individuals and organizations to sign on to Ignacio Ramonet’s open letter. The project would be part of a major push to get the job done.

After all, the U.S. State Department did remove Cuba from its list of countries “not cooperating fully” in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts in May 2024.

Here is what you do to sign on:

• First, read Ramonet’s letter. It’s accessible at this link.
• Second, access the Casa de las Americas invitation to endorse it. Do that by going to the same link.
• Third, go to page three of the same communication to indicate who you are and the name of your group.

A job well done.