Iran is one of Cuba's main strategic partners, and the communist island provides Tehran with an important platform to expand its influence in the West, according to a report released by the State Department on Monday.
The document also accuses Cuba of long-standing support to “radical leftism” in the US, including by maintaining ties with groups involved in protests against President Donald Trump's hard-line immigration enforcement policies.
The Trump administration, particularly Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has in recent months increased claims against Cuba in what many in Washington believe is a pretext to try to topple the Caribbean island's communist government.
Mr Rubio, whose parents moved from Cuba to Florida in 1956, shortly before Fidel Castro came to power, said Havana had been behind more than six decades of “espionage and subversion” in the US.
Reacting to a post by Mr Rubio on X, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida said: “Cuba is next.”
The 100-page report, Cuba: The Capital of 21st Communism, states that Havana's relationship with Tehran goes far deeper than close diplomatic ties and argues that Cuba offers intelligence, political and strategic support to Iran and its proxies.
“In keeping with its 'anti-imperialist' posture, Cuba has long supported the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – offering them not just the support of the regime itself, but also a waypoint for expanding their foothold in Latin America,” the report states.
The report also states that IRGC Quds Force officers were previously working under diplomatic cover at Iran’s embassy in Caracas, providing intelligence and other assistance to the regime of the president at the time, Nicolas Maduro.
It says Iran and its proxies had been a “key node” in an alliance between Cuba and Venezuela.
The report states that by 2003, “Hezbollah had already established cells in Venezuela; by 2019, analysts estimated that thousands of suspected Hezbollah, Hamas and other Iranian-backed militants had travelled to Venezuela and to other parts of Latin America, including Bolivia and Nicaragua”.
The report also delves into Cuba's support of left-wing causes in the US. It alleges that the National Network on Cuba, which is a US-based alliance “advocating for an end to Washington’s hostility towards Cuba”, has close ties to the country's intelligence and influence network, known as Icap.
The report says that in June, the NNOC distributed a detailed strategy for activating and launching “co-ordinated nationwide action” against federal institutions, US military bases and immigration detention centres within 24 hours of US military action or threatened action against Cuba.
The National was unable to reach the NNOC for comment.
For decades, Cuba has “infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists [and] backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil”, the report states.
Cuba solidarity groups did not immediately issue rebuttals to the report, much of which is based on declassified Cold War intelligence and publicly known spy cases.
The Trump administration has recently imposed sanctions on Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism and several state-owned companies, as it steps up pressure aimed at dislodging the 67-year-old regime.
Cuba has said it is willing to make economic reforms and negotiate with the US, but that its one-party system is not up for debate.
