The Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect (ACERE) expresses concern over the January 31 announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the United States will be returning to a “tough Cuba…
ACERE Insights
US-Cuba Policy Highlights
Issue No. 16 - February 14, 2025
In this newsletter:
ACERE Policy Insight
Cuba “Democracy Promotion” Programs in the Spotlight Amid USAID, NED Scrutiny
- ACERE Statement
- ACERE Warns “Tough Cuba Policy” Counterproductive to U.S. Objectives
- US-Cuba Policy News
- Trump’s envoy lets loose on the Panama Canal and “imminent” change in Cuba
Rubio cuts off formal remittance channels to Cuba, approves re-creation of Cuba restricted list
Trump officials make plans to revoke legal status of migrants welcomed under Biden
- Members of Congress reject Trump plan to expand detention center at Guantánamo Bay
- Ex-New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery and acting as agent of Egypt
- Trump revokes the removal of Cuba from state sponsors of terrorism list
- Senator Ron Wyden introduces legislation to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba
- Members of Congress, U.S. allies support Biden move to lift Cuba’s SST label in exchange for release of prisoners
- Spy agencies dismiss foreign role in in Havana Syndrome
- News from Cuba
South Korea opens embassy in Cuba and appoints an ambassador
‘Uncertainty never ends’ as deal to free Cuba prisoners unravels under Trump
Families fear for Cuban prisoners after Trump reneges on release deal
- Recommended Readings
Biden was right: Cuba should be off the list of terrorism-sponsor states
- The Trump administration unabashedly embraces the Monroe Doctrine
- Exit stage left: Biden’s curious Cuba move
- Carter and Cuba: a legacy of dedicated diplomacy toward normalization
- Impact of sanctions policy shifts: a case study of the United States and Cuba, 1994-2020
Musicians use their art as a gateway to better relations between the U.S. and Cuba
- Tweet of the Month
Senator Peter Welch Denounces SST Relisting from the Senate Floor
ACERE Policy Insight
Cuba “Democracy Promotion” Programs in the Spotlight Amid USAID, NED Scrutiny
As the Trump administration moves to drastically restructure the delivery of U.S. foreign assistance, including by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. democracy promotion funding for Cuba, authorized under Section 109 of the 1996 Helms-Burton (LIBERTAD) Act, has undergone increased public scrutiny. With an annual congressional appropriation of $25 million distributed through a variety of agencies, such as USAID, the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) and Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), and the federally-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), many of the Cuba program recipients are scrambling to receive more definitive guidance and raise funds independent from the U.S. government, or find themselves forced to shutter operations. According to Politico, NED has already informed organizations dependent on its financial support that, “once you run out of money, consider your agreement with our organization suspended.” Similar questions have arisen about the U.S.-funded Office of Cuba Broadcasting, better known as Radio and TV Martí – which also received $25 million for FY24 – in light of statements by presidential envoy Richard Grenell that Voice of America and Radio Free Europe should be closed.
Amid the uncertainty, groups that have received millions of dollars of this U.S. federal funding for Cuba programming are making urgent appeals for support, such as the Miami-based outlet Cubanet and Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba. According to a Diario de Cuba collaborator in Argentina interviewed by The Guardian, amid the U.S. freeze on foreign aid, “many working in Cuban independent media rely on scholarships and financing, and they have lost their jobs overnight.” As such, some Democratic commentators are rushing to defend the Cuba programs, arguing the cuts will serve as a boon for authoritarian regimes and squash civil society attempts to expose corruption and abuses of power.
Even before the administration began dramatically downsizing USAID and promising to dissolve the NED, the Cuba programs, which the island’s authorities say amount to “regime change,” came under increased scrutiny after the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights, Armando Valladares, released a video calling out one major recipient, Orlando Guteirrez Boronat, whose organization the Cuban Democratic Directorate has received near-annual multi-million contracts since the early 2000s to promote democracy and freedom in Cuba, with very few results to show. This has prompted other Republican national security officials to call for an investigation into the recipients of these funds, who are not subject to Congressional oversight, claiming that the programs have become a lucrative cottage industry wielded to lobby for increased sanctions on the island in Washington, Brussels and regional capitals across Latin America.
Ambassador Valladares isn’t the only one calling to investigate the Cuba democracy programs. Sources tell ACERE that the Biden administration was also poised to appoint a senior USAID official to investigate, audit and propose a restructuring of the Cuba democracy programs to better align with U.S. objectives, but the plans were scrapped after receiving backlash from certain members of Congress convinced of the effectiveness of the current programs, despite their limited results. And during a House committee markup last year, senior member of the House Appropriations Committee Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) said in reference to funding for Radio and TV Martí that it would be a better use of taxpayer dollars for the U.S. government to be providing financial support to Cuban entrepreneurs than spending “$35 million on radio waves that no one listens to.”
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), Vice Chair of that Committee and Chair of its Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, which oversees the Cuba democracy assistance funding, has requested an unprecedented $35 million for these funds in the FY25 funding bill, as well as another $35 million for Radio and TV Martí, despite claiming to “safeguard U.S. taxpayer dollars by significantly reducing wasteful spending.” Rep. Díaz-Balart may have little to worry about regarding the Cuba funds with his longtime friend and ally, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, serving as Acting Administrator of USAID, yet given Republicans’ increased skepticism about the nature of these agencies’ programs abroad, and in light of a 2019 audit finding Radio and TV Martí was “rife with bad journalism and ineffective propaganda,” it can be expected that the debate around the covert Cuba programs will not be going away anytime soon.
For more information: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/13/national-endowment-democracy-musk-funding-017146
US-Cuba Policy News
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
Trump’s envoy lets loose on the Panama Canal and “imminent” change in Cuba: Special envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone told Politico Magazine in a wide-ranging interview that “democratic change” in Cuba was not only inevitable but “imminent,” and that President Trump can be “very creative” in making that happen. Without revealing exactly what he had in mind beyond tightened sanctions and covert operations, Claver-Carone failed to mention that for deacdes, Cuban-American politicians from Florida like himself have been making similar claims and haphazard attempts, all of which have failed, including those he helped engineer under Trump’s first term, with Cubans on and off the island paying the price. Before entering the Trump administration, Claver Carone was the pro-embargo lobby’s top operator in Washington for at least 13 years, funneling Miami exile dollars to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to steer support away from a modernized Cuba policy that could improve the lives of the Cuban people while advancing U.S. interests in the region. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/12/mauricio-claver-carone-interview-trump-latin-america-00203718
Rubio cuts off formal remittance channels to Cuba, approves re-creation of Cuba restricted list: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the Trump administration’s return to a “tough Cuba policy” late January, including by cutting off formal remittance channels to Cuba through the addition of Cuban remittance-processing firm Orbit S.A. (Western Union’s in-country partner) onto the restored list of restricted Cuban entities. Likewise, Rubio announced the full reversal of President Biden’s last-minute sanctions relief deal by revoking his waiver on Title III of the Helms-Burton (LIBERTAD) Act, thus allowing U.S. citizens to sue any firm in U.S. court alleged to be “trafficking” in properties nationalized after the Cuban revolution. Thus far, save one out-of-court settlement with a European construction firm, no plaintiff has enjoyed a payday from a Title III suit, all suits have been filed against U.S. and foreign companies (not the Cuban government), and interpretations from federal courts have become a near-total ban to future Title III claims. Likewise, the inclusion of Orbit S.A. onto the Cuba restricted list will likely push all remittance activity underground, carried out by individual travelers hired by agencies mostly based out of Rubio’s home state that charge upward of 30% fees. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rubio-says-he-approved-re-creation-cuba-restricted-list-2025-01-31/
Trump officials make plans to revoke legal status of migrants welcomed under Biden: CBS News immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez writes that the Trump administration is preparing to revoke the legal status of many of the migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti who were allowed to come to the U.S. legally under a humanitarian parole program initiated by former President Biden. At least 110,000 Cubans were able to obtain authorizations to live and work for two years under the program, and while those Cubans in the U.S. for at least a year under the program can adjust their status under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, migrants of the three other nationalities have fewer options to remain. According to an internal proposal viewed by CBS, Trump officials have argued that the Biden program was a misuse of immigration parole and would place migrants in deportation proceedings if they fail to apply for or obtain another immigration benefit, like asylum, a green card of temporary protected status. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-officials-make-plans-to-revoke-legal-status-of-migrants-welcomed-under-biden/
Members of Congress reject Trump plan to expand detention center at Guantánamo Bay: House Democrats are speaking out against the Trump administration’s announcement to expand the migrant operations center at Guantánmo Bay, Cuba to 30,000 beds. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-IL) wrote that “Guantanamo hosted some of our most shameful acts of violence, dehumanization, and humiliation. It should be closed and the land returned to Cuba. Not repurposed. Not expanded. And definitely not turned into a detention camp for immigrants.” Meanwhile, Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García (D-IL) wrote “I’ve been advocating for the closure of Guantánamo for years. This idea of turning it into an immigrant detention camp is cruel, morally reprehensible, and raises even more concerns about civil rights and liberties.” In response to the announcement, Cuban authorities said that “irresponsible use [of the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base] would generate a scenario of risk and insecurity in that illegal enclave and its surroundings; it would threaten peace and lend itself to errors, accidents & misinterpretations that could alter stability and cause serious consequences.” https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/01/30/pentagon-faces-new-trump-order-build-guantanamo-massive-migrant-detention-facility.html
Ex-New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribery and acting as agent of Egypt: Cuban-American former senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) was sentenced to 11 years in prison late January for bribery and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for Egypt. In delivering his sentence, U.S. district judge Sidney Stein said of Menendez, “You stood at the apex of our political system. Somewhere along the way, and I don’t know when it was, you lost your way and working for the public good became working for your good.” Menendez, who maintained his innocence and beat another high-profile corruption case a decade earlier, aligned himself with President Trump in a statement outside of the New York federal courthouse following the decision: “This process is political and it’s corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores the integrity to the system.” Menendez, whose family left Cuba years before the 1959 revolution, had been the leading Democratic supporter of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, consistently torpedoing efforts by the Obama and Biden administrations to improve bilateral ties between the U.S. and Cuba. https://www.aol.com/judge-set-sentence-former-sen-050553641.html?guccounter=1
Trump revokes the removal of Cuba from state sponsors of terrorism list: On the first day of his administration, President Trump introduced an executive order reversing President Biden’s January 14th decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. In another executive order, Trump reversed the Biden administration’s move to annul National Security Presidential Memorandum 5, which authorized the creation of a State Department list of hundreds of entities allegedly controlled by Cuba’s military off limits to individuals subject to U.S. jurisdiction. In response to the decision, Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee Jim McGovern (D-MA) said, “This is an awful move that hurts ordinary Cubans. It makes America look stupid, runs contrary to our allies, increases migration, and makes us less safe. I’m ashamed of what he is doing.” Major U.S. ally Colombia, in a statement from former Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, said, “We insist that the Trump administration reconsider its decision to keep Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism list and will keep advocating for its rescission because it is an unjust measure toward that country.” The Biden administration had concluded in its determination that “there is no credible evidence at this time of ongoing support by Cuba of international terrorism,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement four days after the executive order, said, in reference to a handful of aging U.S. fugitives allegedly living in Cuba, none of whom have been charged or convicted with committing acts of international terrorism, that “Cuba continues to harbor and provide safe haven to U.S. fugitives and terrorists.” https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-revokes-biden-removal-cuba-us-state-sponsors-terrorism-list-2025-01-21/
Senator Ron Wyden introduces legislation to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba: The Ranking Members of Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden (D-OR), introduced legislation mid-January to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2025 (S.136). The bill would repeal the Torricelli (Cuban Democracy) Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996. Introduced every session of Congress, including prior to the Obama administration, the initiative was most successful in 2017, garnering 24 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle after having been introduced by Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL). https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/wyden-introduces-bill-to-end-cuba-embargo-establish-normal-trade-relations
Members of Congress, U.S. allies support Biden move to lift Cuba’s SST label in exchange for release of prisoners: Top Democrats in Congress, U.S. allies in the region, world leaders and U.S. national security officials praised President Biden for lifting the designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism mid-January. The decision, along with the reversal of other Trump-era sanctions against the island, helped facilitate a Vatican-led effort to release 553 prisoners in Cuban jails, at least 190 of whom, including high-profile political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, were released within a matter of days. While the Trump administration reversed Biden’s move, as Secretary of State-nominee Marco Rubio predicated at his confirmation hearing and incoming State Department Latin America envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone commented Axios, experts on both sides of the aisle argued to keep it in place in order to ensure the prisoner releases, encourage further reform in Cuba, advance U.S. counter-terrorism efforts and curb surging migration to the U.S. At the time of Biden’s announcement, incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz expressed ambivalence to FOX News, saying, “If people are going free, then that’s what it is for now.” https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-rep-castro-statement-on-biden-administrations-decision-to-rescind-state-sponsor-of-terrorism-designation-for-cuba
Spy agencies dismiss foreign role in in Havana Syndrome: Award-winning investigative journalists Michael Isikoff writes for Spy Talk that an official with former President Biden’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ONDI) told reporters that 60 Minutes reporting on Havana Syndrome “does not hold up to scrutiny” and that “we have information that contradicts it.” Isikoff’s piece comes amid widespread reporting, buttressed by 60 Minutes investigations, that two of seven intelligence components have expressed doubts about a 2023 ONDI assessment that it was “very unlikely” a foreign adversary carried out attacks causing the range of debilitating symptoms known as “Havana Syndrome.” According to Isikoff, “among U.S. intelligence professionals, there have been many other reasons for skepticism about the claims surrounding Havana Syndrome. Despite years of investigation, nobody has identified, much less located, an actual weapon…that could have produced the reported symptoms.” https://www.spytalk.co/p/spy-agencies-again-dismiss-foreign
News from Cuba
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
South Korea opens embassy in Cuba and appoints an ambassador: The Government of South Korea opened an embassy in Havana, Cuba mid-January, nearly a year after the surprise announcement to establish diplomatic ties with the Caribbean island. The two countries had not maintained formal relations since 1959 given the Cuban government’s friendly relations with North Korea, but they announced the move in February 2024, given Korea’s business interests on the island, and have been working in the ensuing 11 months to establish diplomatic missions in the respective countries. https://efe.com/en/latest-news/2025-01-18/south-korea-cuba/
‘Uncertainty never ends’ as deal to free Cuba prisoners unravels under Trump: Agence-France Press reported in late January that the highly anticipated release of 553 Cuban prisoners, announced after former president Joe Biden decided to take Cuba off the state sponsors of terrorism list, has been stalled, leaving hundreds of Cuban families waiting to learn more about the fate of their imprisoned loved ones. “Just two weeks ago, Cubans celebrated the anticipated release of jailed protesters in a deal struck under US then-president Joe Biden. Now hope is waning for hundreds still behind bars after Donald Trump scrapped the agreement,” AFP writes. Independent rights groups have documented that at least 190 of the prisoners were let out of jail on conditional releases from January 14-20, at which point the releases stopped, coinciding with President Trump’s decision on day one of his administration to reverse Biden’s SSOT rescission. https://www.barrons.com/news/uncertainty-never-ends-as-deal-to-free-cuba-prisoners-unravels-under-trump-e6e9bd42
Families fear for Cuban prisoners after Trump reneges on release deal: The Guardian’s Havana correspondent Ruaridh Nicholl similarly wrote in late January that “the families of Cuban protesters jailed in anti-government demonstrations are waiting anxiously to see if the government will continue with a planned prisoner release after Donald Trump reneged on a deal made last week by Joe Biden.” Nicholl explains that “the measures were not explicitly linked to a simultaneous announcement by the Cuban government that it had agreed to a request by the Vatican to release the 553 prisoners, but most Cubans assumed a quid pro quo.” After President Trump unilaterally decided to prevent the removal of Cuba from the terrorist-sponsor list, Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel responded by saying that “the US president was showing arrogance and disregard for the truth.” The families of prisoners who have yet to be released, Nicholl writes, are expressing their frustration online: “My kids are anxiously awaiting that freedom call from their daddy…this has hit them hard,” one Cuban mother told The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/22/cuban-prisoner-release-trump-terrorism
Recommended Media
The views and opinions expressed by authors are their own and articles do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of ACERE.
Biden was right: Cuba should be off the list of terrorism-sponsor states: The Dallas Morning News editorial board argues that President Biden was right by removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, arguing that smart diplomacy is more effective than vindictive blacklisting. “Most intelligence analysts agree that there are no grounds to include Cuba in the same list as Iran, North Korea and Syria,” the editorial board argues, saying that “using this designation against Cuba weakens Washington’s geopolitical standing and bungles a policy tool that should be rarely used.” Along with the limitations it creates for access to international credit and financial markets, the designation inhibits visa-free travel to the U.S. for hundreds of thousands of Cubans with Spanish citizenship and bars U.S. universities receiving federal funding from supporting research with Cuban academics, the board notes. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2025/02/01/biden-was-right-cuba-should-be-off-the-list-of-terrorism-sponsor-states/?outputType=amp
The Trump administration unabashedly embraces the Monroe Doctrine: Ecuador’s former foreign minister Guillaume Long writes in The Nation that in its first weeks, the Trump administration appears to be unabashedly embracing the Monroe Doctrine, arguing that “the reincorporation of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, hours after his inauguration, set the tone.” Long notes that “in 2021, the first Trump administration, under pressure from Rubio, included Cuba on its terror list” which “rocked the island’s economy and caused untold hardship for ordinary Cubans.” In the piece, Long argues that “the political establishment in the United States, and this includes some Democrats, still believes that the only way to win Florida is to be tough on Cuba, despite the fact that the state’s Cuban American vote has played a decisive role in only one US presidential election, in 2000.” Polling data also now shows, according to Long, that Cuba policy “isn’t the main factor in how most Cuban Americans vote.” Nevertheless, Long contends that “for many conservatives, reasserting Washington’s dominion over the Western Hemisphere is part and parcel of making America great again,” meaning that on Latin America policy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio “might get a freehand…in part because his boss doesn’t care.” https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-latin-america-policy-monroe-doctrine/
Exit stage left: Biden’s curious Cuba move: Writing for Responsible Statecraft, a publication of the Quincy Institute, American University professor William LeoGrande argues that the prisoner release deal engineered by Pope Frances was positive for a number of reasons, despite being quickly reversed by the Trump administration. For one, it demonstrated to the international community Cuba’s willingness to compromise and desire to reduce conflict with the U.S.; two, it got the U.S. government on the record that Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism; and three, it makes explicit that Trump’s reversal of the deal is to blame for jeopardizing the release of many of the 553 prisoners slated to be freed. Despite these silver linings, LeoGrande criticizes the move for being too little, too late, adding that “nothing about Joe Biden’s Cuba policy was bold, and it accomplished nothing. Cuba is poorer and less open today than it was four years ago, China’s and Russia’s influence there is greater, a million more Cuban migrants have fled to the United States, and Democrats are less politically popular than ever in Florida.” https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-cuba-trump-2670889161/
Carter and Cuba: a legacy of dedicated diplomacy toward normalization: The National Security Archive of George Washington University released a previously unpublished interview of recently deceased President Jimmy Carter in which he stated that the U.S. embargo on Cuba was “a deprivation of American civil liberties” and called restrictions on trade and travel “unconscionable.” Edited by Cuba experts Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande, the new briefing book released by the Archive includes a series of declassified documents, including Carter’s key White House directive, signed just a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, ordering the normalization of relations with the island. It also reveals the back-channel diplomatic efforts of Carter emissaries sent to Cuba to improve bilateral ties, including Coca-Cola CEO Paul Austin, and contains a personal letter from Carter to Fidel Castro to help resolve the so-called “balsero” migration crisis of 1994. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2025-01-15/carter-and-cuba-legacy-dedicated-diplomacy-toward-normalization
Impact of sanctions policy shifts: a case study of the United States and Cuba, 1994-2020: A new study by Cuban economist Pavel Vidal in the Journal for International Development based on data from 1994-2020 “confirms the substantial negative impact of sanctions policy shifts on Cuba’s economic growth.” Vidal, a former Cuban Central Bank official now teaching at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, concludes that “fluctuations in the flow of U.S. goods, travelers and remittances significantly influence the trajectory of Cuba’s GDP,” all of which shift considerably based on U.S. sanctions policy toward the island. The study notably finds that “tight sanctions [on Cuba] negatively impact household consumption and Cuba’s private sector,” and did not register a notable decline in the value of Cuban government consumption,” underscoring the disproportionate impacts hardline Cuba policies have on Cuban families and private sector workers. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jid.3973?domain=author&token=PXYQXRXU9WHGQTCBSGYX
Musicians use their art as a gateway to better relations between the U.S. and Cuba: PBS reporter Jeffrey Brown covers from Havana a U.S.-Cuba musical exchange organized by a group of renowned New Orleans artists seeking to create closer relations between Cubans and U.S. citizens while providing economic relief to the island’s residents. The first of a three-part video series, Brown interviews Afro-Cuban funk icon Cimfunk, New Orleans legend Trombone Shorty and music students from both the U.S. and Cuba who have been empowered by years of sustained exchanges, workshops and music festivals organized between the two musical hubs. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/musicians-use-their-art-as-a-gateway-to-better-relations-between-the-u-s-and-cuba
Tweet of the Month
Senator Peter Welch Denounces SST Relisting from the Senate Floor: Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) denounced from the Senate floor President Trump’s decision to reverse the announcement to lift Cuba’s state sponsor of terrorism designation, which he called “a transparently political designation, not one based on the facts of the law.” In his intervention, Welch stated that “even those who claim that Cuba belongs on the list of state sponsors have failed to produce any evidence that it supports acts of international terrorism.” Welch concludes his remarks by adding that “our policy of sanctions, isolation and hostility has unquestionably contributed to the daily hardships suffered by the Cuban people.”
To read his full statement, see: https://x.com/AllianceForCuba/status/1883167119497715957
