The United States designates Cuba as a State sponsor of terrorism

Mike Pompeo, last March at a press conference at the State Department, in the city of Washington.NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP

The United States has designated Cuba as a "State sponsor of terrorism," as the State Department announced in a statement on Monday.

The decision is due, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to the fact that Havana "repeatedly provides support for acts of international terrorism by guaranteeing a safe harbor for terrorists."

"With this action, we will once again hold the Government of Cuba responsible and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and the subversion of US justice," added Pompeo.

The decision, the statement says, will lead to the imposition of "sanctions on people and countries that carry out certain trade activities with Cuba."

The return of the country to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, from which it came out in 2015 and which also includes Syria, Iran and North Korea, represents the reversal of the efforts of the Administration of Democrat Barack Obama to rebuild the ties with the island, a historic enemy of the Cold War.

And it complicates the field of maneuver for a possible approach to the diplomacy of the Administration of Joe Biden, who was Obama's vice president, who will take office on the 20th.

This is the latest in a series of measures adopted by the State Department in the final stretch of President Trump's term aimed at shielding some of his policies before the replacement in the White House.