The Trump administration added Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism Monday, reversing a signature policy move of the Obama administration and potentially hampering President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to quickly broker a rapprochement with Havana.

 

“With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

A U.S. economic embargo of Cuba already curbs Americans’ ability to do business with or visit the communist island. But the new terrorism label could hinder commercial deals with third countries Cuba relies on to import essential goods and turn off foreign investors in its all-important tourism industry.

 

The decision is a part of a blitz of 11th-hour moves by the Trump administration to push through hard-line policies championed by influential domestic political constituencies, despite the complications they will create for State Department lawyers, humanitarian interests abroad and the incoming Biden administration.

“This blatantly politicized designation makes a mockery of what had been a credible, objective measure of a foreign government’s active support for terrorism,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). “Nothing remotely like that exists here. In fact, domestic terrorism in the United States poses a far greater threat to Americans than Cuba does.”

On Sunday, Pompeo announced his intention to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization, a move long sought by anti-Iran hard-liners in the United States despite concerns among aid groups that it will dramatically worsen the humanitarian situation in Yemen. On Saturday, Pompeo said he was lifting restrictions on contacts between U.S. diplomats and Taiwanese officials, a move that infuriated Beijing but won praise from Washington’s Taiwan lobby.

The specter of Cuba’s addition to the terrorism list had already led officials in Havana to rail against the move.

 

“We condemn a unilateral, absurd, hypocritical and unjust maneuver of the US administration to include Cuba in their list of state sponsors of terrorism,” Cuban President Miguel Daz-Canel tweeted on Dec. 31 as talk escalated of Cuba’s inclusion. “This administration protects terrorist groups acting against #Cuba.”

Critics have long questioned U.S. interest in placing Cuba on the terrorism list ahead of other countries, attributing it to pressure from the anti-Communist Cuban American community in Florida.

“Returning Cuba to this list is clearly a politically motivated decision, a reward to domestic political allies of the Trump administration during its last weeks rather than an effective foreign policy step,” said Geoff Thale, president of the Washington Office on Latin America.

 

The move amounts to another step back for relations between Washington and Havana. In 2014, President Barack Obama announced a historic reestablishment of diplomatic ties with Cuba, leading to a 2016 visit that inspired hopes of bringing American investment and visitors back to the communist island largely shut off from the United States.