(EFE).- The United States determined again this year that Cuba and Venezuela “do not fully cooperate” in the fight against terrorism, according to a notice published this Friday in the US Federal Register.
“I hereby determine and certify to Congress that the following countries are not fully cooperating with United States counterterrorism efforts: Iran, the People’s Republic of Korea (or North Korea), Syria, Venezuela, and Cuba,” reads a brief note from the Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
This is the second year that the government of President Joe Biden, who came to power in January 2021, has concluded that neither Cuba nor Venezuela are fully collaborating with their efforts in the fight against terrorism.
The White House is obliged annually to notify Congress of the list of countries that it considers are not fully collaborating in this area.
Cuba has been on this list since May 2020, which served as the legal basis for months later, in January 2021, to be added to another US blacklist, that of State Sponsors of Terrorism, under the mandate of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021).
Trump added Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism nine days before leaving the White House, complicating Biden’s chances of immediately resuming a rapprochement with Havana.
Apart from Cuba, Washington describes three other countries as state sponsors of terrorism: North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Putting a country on that list implies barriers to trade and more sanctions, but all those restrictions already weighed on Cuba due to the blockade, so above all it had a symbolic component.
Apart from Cuba, Washington classifies three other countries as state sponsors of terrorism: North Korea, Iran and Syria.
Regarding Venezuela, the United States classified Caracas for the first time as a country that does not fully collaborate with anti-terrorist efforts in 2006, which led to the prohibition of US sales and licenses to export defense articles to Venezuela.
The publication this Friday of the notification in the Federal Register occurs in a week in which the US has had some gestures towards Cuba and Venezuela.
On Monday, the Biden Administration announced the r establishment of commercial flights to Cuba beyond Havanathe abolition of the limit on the sending of remittances and the recovery of a family reunification program.
A day later, on Tuesday, he reported that will lift some economic sanctions against Venezuelaamong them the prohibition of the US oil company Chevron from negotiating with the state-owned PDVSA, in exchange for the reactivation of the dialogue between the government of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, which was taking place in Mexico City.
The US has been working on these announcements for months and has decided to make them public at a time when the Summit of the Americas, scheduled for June in Los Angeles, California, in that North American country, and where Biden wants to promote an immigration pact, is questioned by the White House’s decision not to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
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