Welch, a member of the federal Senate from Vermont, wrote on his account on the social network X that there is no justifiable or practical reason to continue a failed policy of sanctions against Cuba.
The Democratic legislator also urged Biden to restore the right of Americans to travel freely to the island.
Welch has been a senator since last year, but has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 2007.
On November 19, Democratic congressmen Barbara Lee, Jim McGovern, Gregory Meeks and Joaquín Castro, members of the House of Representatives, joined in writing letter to the president, requesting policy changes towards the island.
According to the letter, published on Lee’s official website, the representatives called for “immediate relief of sanctions on the Cuban people” and agreed on the need to remove Cuba from the (arbitrary and unilateral) list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
Earlier this month, more than 50 elected officials, collectively representing millions of Americans, along with union leaders and solidarity organizations, made a similar request to Biden.
The diverse coalition urged the president, in the short time he has left in the White House, to reverse the policies towards Cuba enforced under Donald Trump’s first term (2017-2021).
“The embargo (blockade) and the SSOT designation (acronym in English for State Sponsor of Terrorism) are relics of a failed foreign policy,” said Vermont State Senator Tanya Vyhovsky, according to a statement published on the official website of the International Committee of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), promoter of the initiative.
The group highlighted the serious consequences of these restrictions, which have deprived Cubans of vital financial resources and deepened economic and humanitarian crises.
Despite the growing call to lift such a designation, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled out any changes in Cuba policy before Biden leaves the executive mansion on January 20, 2025.
Even in an annual State Department report on anti-terrorism efforts in 2023, released on December 12, he ratified Washington’s criteria for keeping Cuba on that list, where it first appeared in 1982, during the administration of Ronald Reagan.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama removed Cuba from that list and on January 12, 2021, days before concluding his first term, Trump put Cuba back again on that list, a measure that served to reinforce the long-standing economic, commercial and financial blockade.
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