The Trump administration is taking a historic step against the Cuban military and intelligence services controlling that country and propping up Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro, the State Department announced Monday.

For the first time, U.S. citizens will be able to sue some entities whose businesses are built on property seized from them in the aftermath of Fidel Castro's 1959 Communist revolution. Title III of the Libertad Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act, authorized such lawsuits but has been suspended by successive presidents every six months since it passed in 1996.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he was suspending the law for just 30 days this time and including an important exception: Lawsuits could proceed against blacklisted Cuban individuals and groups tied to the security services “directly responsible for the repression of the Cuban people,” a senior State Department official said. The official estimated about 200 entities could be subject to suits.

“It’s clear that by this action we are ratcheting up pressure on the Cuban government,” the official told reporters Monday. “We’ll also continue to encourage international partners to hold Cuba accountable for propping up the Maduro regime in Venezuela and press them to stop harassing and detaining peaceful activists and independent journalists.”

Pompeo signaled in January that he might move to enforce the law when he issued a short 45-day suspension. The exception to today's waiver applies only to blacklisted Cuban entities — not, the State official stressed, Western companies who partner with them.

“It is not intended to affect European companies that are currently doing business in Cuba,” the official confirmed.

The change in policy is a tightening of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, but it's unlikely to have much effect on its own. Foreign investment sustains the Communist country's ailing economy, and it would be difficult for U.S. citizens to collect on judgments made against Cuban government actors in U.S. federal courts.

Still, lawmakers who support the full enforcement of the Libertad Act applauded State's decision as a positive first move. “Allowing American citizens to sue for stolen property in Cuba and denying foreign nationals involved in trafficking stolen property entry into the United States is a huge step toward cutting off the money supply to the Castro Regime,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.

Pompeo’s team emphasized that the Cuban security services targeted today are also helping Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro resist international pressure to step aside in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido, who has been recognized as interim president by dozens of Western countries, including the United States. Prominent lawmakers from Florida — which has a large Cuban-American population — applauded the decision as a way to pressure both Latin American adversaries.

“President Trump is sending a strong message that the United States will not sit idly by while the Cuban regime continues to support the Maduro crime family at the expense of the Venezuelan people," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “The United States is holding the Cuban regime accountable for its crimes, including its support for the murderous Maduro crime family. Justice is coming — and it is just getting started.”

Pompeo’s decision, which takes effect March 19 and will have to be revisited 30 days later, drew criticism from proponents of diplomatic and economic engagement with the Cuban regime.

“If the move is meant to incentivize a constructive role for Cuba in Venezuela’s political impasse, this administration is misguided,” said Emily Mendrala, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas. “The administration’s exploitation of events in Venezuela to settle Cold War scores with Cuba is a distraction from the real needs — humanitarian and political — in Venezuela.”

Mendrala noted that the short suspension of Title III, paired with the exception allowing limited lawsuits to proceed, would increase financial pressure on the regime by foreshadowing full enforcement of the law. “[It is] certainly designed to create an ever-shifting sanctions environment, erode market certainty, and thus discourage entities around the world from investing in Cuba,” she said, warning that the decision would "alienate U.S. allies," such as Canada, Mexico and Europe, with "significant investments in Cuba."

Critics of the Communist regime are unsympathetic to the interests of the “unscrupulous businesses” that “have chosen to partner with tyrants,” as Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart put it.

“This is just the first action of many regarding the Administration’s actions on Title III,” the Florida Republican said in a statement. “Years of consecutive extensions may have lulled some into a false sense of impunity. Yet now companies which willingly entangle themselves in partnerships with the anti-American, illegitimate, and oppressive regime in Cuba are on notice that they will be held responsible for their part in callously benefiting from the extensive losses suffered by victims of the regime.”