Trump administration attacks US left, alleging Cuba ties: Key takeaways
US report says the beleaguered government in Havana is the ‘connective tissue’ of a global ‘anti-American coalition’. The administration of United States President Donald Trump
US report says the beleaguered government in Havana is the ‘connective tissue’ of a global ‘anti-American coalition’. The administration of United States President Donald Trump has released a 100-page report tying left-wing advocacy groups in the US to Cuba – often relying on circumstantial and ideological links, rather than direct connections. The document, released by the State Department on Monday, portrays the beleaguered Caribbean nation as an ideological threat to the US and its interests, frequently using language and concepts harkening back to the Cold War. It argues that Cuba, which is led by a communist government, is trying to subvert the US from within. “While Soviet communism was frequently driven by more practical great-power concerns – the preservation of the Soviet empire and the defence of its material interests around the globe – its Cuban successor was built around a near-singular obsession with the ‘liberation’ of the Global South from its Western colonial oppressors,” it reads. “In the minds of the Cubans, there was only one path to this goal: the destruction of the Yankee imperialist regime.” Left-wing activists have rejected the accusations that they have links to Cuba, saying the claims made in the report aim to increase pressure on Havana while intensifying the crackdown on dissent inside the US. Here are five key takeaways from the report Left-wing groups accused of ties to Cuba In a section titled “Front Groups and Fellow Travellers”, the State Department attempts to draw a link between left-wing groups in the US and across the world and Havana. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has helped elect several progressive politicians to Congress, is the most prominent group on the list. The Trump administration admits that the DSA is not a Cuban asset, but it says the group’s rise shows how “native and organic ideological commitments of the American far left now mirror the interests” of the Cuban government. The DSA is an activist organisation whose stated mission is to support workers gaining power through democratic means. The report hyped the DSA’s influence, calling it “a mass membership organisation operating openly in American electoral politics … a growing bench of elected officials, and real influence inside the Democratic Party coalition”.
“The DSA has built a national infrastructure dedicated to moving extreme-left politics from the margins into the mainstream – and with it, a deep and abiding devotion to the Cuban regime,” it said. The Trump administration also singled out the antiwar group Code Pink, underscoring that one of the group’s donors is a US citizen who lives in China. Code Pink was recently part of a humanitarian delegation to Cuba. The group’s cofounder, Medea Benjamin, told Al Jazeera that the organisation “will not be intimidated” by the Trump administration. She said the approach of labelling activists as communists is a “flashback” to the 1950s at the height of the Cold War. “We are in an era of McCarthyism, where they’re not only labelling groups like us communists and trying to position us as enemies of the state, but also combining that with the efforts to crack down on protests,” Benjamin told Al Jazeera. “So it’s a scary time for people, but it’s also a time that we can’t allow them to stop us. We’ve got to just stand up to these bullies.” State Department invokes Zohran Mamdani The document mentioned the New York mayor by name as it zeroed in on the case of Assata Shakur, a Black liberation activist who was convicted of killing a police officer in 1977 in New Jersey before fleeing to Cuba, where she was given asylum status. Shakur always insisted that she was innocent. The State Department, led by Marco Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, said that Cuba pursued a “Shakur strategy” to gain a foothold in left-wing circles and African-American advocacy groups, including the Black Lives Matter movement. “Figures like Shakur – and with them, Cuban influence – remain extraordinarily influential over left-wing politics in the United States today,” the report said. It went on to cite US politicians who praised Shakur when she died in exile last year. “Democratic congresswoman Ayanna Pressley tweeted ‘Rest in Power,’ and shared a video of herself leading a crowd in call-and-response recitation of one of Shakur’s slogans,” the State Department said. “On the campaign trail in 2025, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to denounce a Democratic Socialists of America tribute to Shakur.” When Mamdani was asked about the DSA statement on Shakur, he said he was focused on affordability and lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers.
The BriefWire