The Trump administration designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a move that could make it more difficult for the Biden administration to relax travel restrictions to the island nation.
President Obama in 2015 formally removed Cuba from the list, which currently includes North Korea, Iran and Syria.
In a statement Monday, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that Cuba has "repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists" and that it has "fed, housed and provided medical care for murderers, bombmakers and hijackers, while many Cubans go hungry, homeless and without basic medicine."
The designation inflicts more sanctions on Cuba, such as banning U.S. economic aid to Cuba and defense exports, the State Department said.
The move was the latest in a steady reversal of the Obama administration's opening of relations with Cuba. In 2019, the Trump administration banned all people-to-people travel to Cuba and made cruising to the island illegal overnight. Many members of the travel industry recently expressed hope that Biden's win would mean a return to the Obama-era travel climate, but the terrorism designation would make Biden's ability to do that more difficult.
Vermont senator Patrick Leahy said the "blatantly politicized designation makes a mockery of what had been a credible, objective measure of a foreign government's active support for terrorism. Nothing remotely like that exists here. In fact, domestic terrorism in the United States poses a far greater threat to Americans than Cuba does."
Colin Laverty, president of Cuban Educational Travel, said that "politicizing cooperation on something as life and death as terrorism is about as low as you can go, especially after the recent events in Washington have shown.
"There is no reason for Cuba to be included on the list. This is clearly guided by domestic politics and trying to tie Biden's hands on Cuba, and not at all based on facts."
The State Department justified Cuba's inclusion on the list based on Cuba's role in Colombian peace negotiations, which were supported by the government of Colombia, as well as Cuba's harboring of U.S. fugitives, something that many countries, including U.S. allies, do regularly, according to Laverty.
"These last-minute attempts to hijack and handcuff Biden's foreign policy will backfire. The terror designation really drives home how much the politicization of Cuba policy has caused suffering for the Cubans over the last four years, and it's firing up the Biden team to change that dynamic," Laverty said.
The listing means that Cuba and those who do business with Cuba could face additional hurdles regarding international financial transactions. Laverty said that many companies that interact with Cuba, such as airlines, will need to update their insurance policies to include servicing a country on the list.
He described this parting measure of the Trump administration as "cruel, dangerous and pathetic and sums up four years of Trump's policy toward Cuba."
He urged Biden to remove Cuba from the terrorism list on Day 1 of his presidency and to issue an executive order to remove all of the Cuba measures put in place by Trump over the last four years.