Posted on 08/03/2026 5:46:03 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Saturday that communist Cuba has spent decades burrowing agents into the highest levels of the U.S. government, calling the island nation an unmatched threat to American security despite its tiny size and crumbling economy.
“A failed state 90 miles from our shores that happens to be aligned with adversaries to the United States is a national security threat to our country,” Rubio told “My View with Lara Trump” on Fox News.
Rubio’s remarks came days after the State Department released a 100-page report accusing Havana of running influence operations across American universities, activist groups and protest movements, including ties to Antifa. The report described Cuba as the capital of 21st-century communism.
“They actually are an influence and espionage superpower,” Rubio said. “If you look at the history of espionage in the United States, Cuba is the only country that consistently has implanted and embedded spies in our system without even paying them.”
Rubio pointed to Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador and national security official who pleaded guilty to acting as a secret Cuban agent for decades and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He also cited Ana Belen Montes, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst convicted of feeding American secrets to Havana, calling her penetration one of the worst intelligence failures in U.S. history. “We’ve had them penetrate the highest levels of Defense Intelligence Agency,” Rubio said.
The secretary went further, tying recent pro-Hamas, anti-ICE and pro-Maduro demonstrations to a common Cuban-backed protest apparatus designed to pressure lawmakers in Washington.
“There’s nothing organic about it. It is funded, it is organized and Cuba is a part of that network and in some cases a critical part of the network,” Rubio said. “And it’s a network they will weaponize against us. And they talk about it openly, about how they will use that network to pressure American policymakers.”
Rubio also blamed Cuba for decades of leftist unrest across Latin America, saying nearly every communist insurgency that has destabilized governments in the region traces back to Havana. “Every single one of them over the last 40, 50 years has found its support, its help, in many cases, its birth, from a Cuban influence operation,” he said.
Some critics have dismissed the State Department report as an attempt to manufacture a pretext for U.S. military action against Cuba. Rubio did not address that criticism directly Saturday, but he took aim at American academics and journalists who he said continue to defend the Diaz-Canel regime.
“I know there are plenty of people in American academia and, frankly, in American press that sympathize with the Cuban regime and have for a very long time,” Rubio said. “Part of it is motivated by their anti-Americanism and part of it motivated by ideological affinity.”
“But it doesn’t mean we can ignore this threat,” he warned.
“I was replying to another poster who was implying that it would be foolish to say the U.S. had anything to do with the current energy shortage when in actuality we are intentionally and openly causing it.”
How?
The LA mayor for one.
In addition to stopping Venezuela from providing Cuba with oil through military means (that is a blockade), we are also threatening every other country and energy company with sanctions so that they don’t sell them any.
I was making no moral claim as to whether it is the right policy or not. I was simply pointing out that we are intentionally and openly causing the energy shortages in Cuba.
The person I was replying to was indicating that the energy problems in Cuba were not caused by us.
Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
We are threatening sanctions for any company or country or person who sells them energy. Venezuela was the one country that didn’t care about our sanctions because they were already sanctioned.
Now that we are stopping VZ from supplying them with energy, they have none.
This was a Trump Truth from Jan 2026...”Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela... THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO!”
This really isn’t that hard to understand unless you are intentionally trying to be obtuse.
Dumbest crap ever.
Actually I think it's even more stupid than that. Didn't Rubio's family flee during the Batista regime?
Thanks.
Really, do you think assets in the right places can’t still operate without a power grid!
A little harsh. We dont know how long they have known. And perhaps they have been dismantling this network plus others. Dont want to telegraph your moves. Maybe they have been able to squeeze some of the network for information.
Considering the morass that he walked into it looks like they are doing really well. You did notice that none of the other administrations were telling us this. Perhaps because they were complicit.
What we have known if the other party was in control?
So true, however the DSA isn’t quite a super power………YET!
Thanks to obama
The only concern I have about Secretary of State Rubio's statement is that he did not address the interconnectivity among Communist, ex-Communist, and radical Islamist nations to subvert and defeat the United States and the Western democracies.
Time to take out Cuba like Venezuela and do it now.
Wonder how much money Soros has pumped into this situation.
You seem to think there is something wrong about that. If they are going back to the dark ages there is no more threat.
The involvement of Soros (father and son) and Neville Roy Singham would not be surprising. They are long term communist operatives, and they may be serving as financiers, laundering money from Chinese, Russian, and Iranian sources into the Cuban intelligence services.
Communist Cuba is on its last legs—without its Soviet backer!
Time to defeat it!!
Time to take it and Greenland and add two more stars to our flag....maybe three with Alberta.
“””””They can’t keep the lights on but at the same time are an espionage superpower? How does that work?””””
Cost effective military and intelligence operations, Cuba is famous for it, they hire out military forces, military trained construction forces, doctors, domestic poverty of its people doesn’t mean a communist government can’t squeeze out the money for their Communist insurgency activities.
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