The news, which is circulating in the media and social networks, may confuse those who believe that Washington has finally listened to almost universal demand that Cuba be removed from the state-sponsors-of-terrorism (SST) list, equally arbitrary and illegal.

What Blinken did on Wednesday was to modify the criteria regarding those that “do not cooperate”.

“The Department of State (DOS) determined that the circumstances for certifying Cuba as a ‘fully non-cooperating country’ have changed from 2022 to 2023,” said an unnamed official, who cited the resumption of bilateral police cooperation as one of the reasons the previous designation was “no longer appropriate.”

The list, which DOS is being required by law to provide to the U.S. Congress, is not the same as the SST list.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, Syria and Venezuela remain on the list.

The United States has just admitted what is known to all: that Cuba fully collaborates with efforts against terrorism, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez posted on X.

Cuba was first included on the State Department’s SST list under the President Ronald Reagan administration in 1982, but in 2015, then-President Barack Obama said that designation had no merit in Cuba’s case and removed it from it.

However, on January 12, 2021, days before leaving office, Donald Trump bequeathed to his successor Joe Biden the Cuba´s re-inclusion in the SST list, something Biden has been keeping unchanged despite the call for him to rectify that stance in his policy toward Cuba.

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