Taking Cuba off the list has two main consequences, diplomatic and economic, said Christopher Sabatini, a Columbia University professor who specializes in Cuba studies. “This is something that for a long time sort of stuck in the craw of the Cubans, who really resented being lumped together with countries like Iran and Syria,” he said.

“The embargo has grown by accretion over the decades, one brick at a time,” said Christopher Sabatini, a scholar of U.S.-Cuba relations who teaches at Columbia University. “Dismantling it is going to happen similarly.”