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The United States has accused Cuba of infiltrating the highest echelons of the US government, as the Trump administration intensifies pressure on the island and revives Cold War-era anti-communist rhetoric.
The State Department released a report on Monday alleging that Cuba had “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.”
While the allegations represent a sharp escalation in US-Cuba tensions, espionage between the two countries has been documented for decades.
Since the Cold War, Washington has made prominent arrests of Cuban intelligence operatives, including the “Cuban Five” in the 1990s and Ana Montes, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst.
More recently, State Department analyst Walter Kendall Myers and former US ambassador to Bolivia Victor Manuel Rocha both pleaded guilty to spying for Cuba.
The report comes as Trump pursues a campaign of maximum pressure on Havana, including an effective oil embargo, new sanctions and the indictment of former Cuban president Raul Castro.
The State Department also alleged that Cuba has cultivated relationships with leftist groups worldwide to fuel “overriding resentment and fundamental hatred of the United States and the broader West.”
The report marks another downturn in relations that briefly improved under former president Barack Obama before Trump reversed course and reinstated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism on his first day back in office in 2025.
Last year, the US military overthrew Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, a close Cuban ally. Washington has since threatened sanctions on countries supplying oil to the island, contributing to widespread blackouts across Cuba.
Trump has repeatedly hinted that Cuba could be the next target of US intervention, saying in June that Washington would be “taking over” the Caribbean island “almost immediately.”
