For decades, Cuba has often been treated as a relic of the Cold War—a communist island isolated by U.S. sanctions and struggling under its own economic failures. But according to a new report from the State Department, the Castro regime's successors never stopped trying to expand their influence inside the United States. They simply changed tactics.
Instead of relying on spies alone, the report argues Cuba has spent years cultivating relationships with American activist organizations, student groups, political movements and nonprofit organizations that share its anti-American and anti-capitalist worldview.
Released Monday, the report, "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," alleges the Cuban government has built an international network designed to shape public opinion, influence policy debates and strengthen ties with activists who can carry Havana's message back home.
At the center of that effort, according to the report, is the Cuban Institute of Friendship with Peoples, better known as ICAP.
Founded by Fidel Castro in 1960, ICAP presents itself as a cultural and friendship organization. The State Department says it is much more than that.
"The Cuban regime leverages ICAP's 'solidarity' networks to drive policy, shape activist movements, and maintain a stable of advocates and agents in the United States," the report states.
Officials say the organization's reach is enormous. ICAP claims relationships with more than 2,000 solidarity organizations spread across 150 countries. The State Department also points to concerns over who runs the organization. ICAP is led by Fernando González Llort, one of the Cuban intelligence officers arrested in Miami as part of the Wasp Network in 1998. He served 15 years in federal prison before returning to Cuba. The report also cites former Cuban intelligence officers who have claimed roughly 90 percent of ICAP employees have ties to the country's intelligence services.
Whether every allegation proves accurate remains to be seen, but the report paints a picture of an organization that has spent decades quietly building political relationships that extend well beyond Cuba's borders.
One of the primary American partners identified is the National Network on Cuba, or NNOC.
The coalition includes more than 60 organizations, among them the Democratic Socialists of America, Code Pink, the National Lawyers Guild and Communist Party USA.
Publicly, the coalition focuses on ending the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The State Department argues that mission only scratches the surface.
According to the report, NNOC works alongside ICAP to organize American delegations to Cuba and host conferences where activists meet directly with Cuban officials to "devise strategies for expanding and exploiting Cuban influence networks in the United States."
The report also follows the political journey of activist Calla Walsh as an example of how those relationships can develop.
Walsh first gained national attention as a teenager after working on the campaigns of Democratic Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren. At just 17 years old, she was invited to Cuba as an emerging activist. She would return to the island four more times between 2022 and 2024.
The report says one of those visits introduced Walsh to Fergie Chambers, a Marxist organizer and millionaire heir to the Cox Communications fortune. Today, Walsh lives in Lebanon and has become an outspoken supporter of Iran's regime. The State Department cites reporting from The Free Press, which says Walsh has been placed on a suspicious persons watch list over what it described as her "expansive dealings with the governments of Cuba and Iran . . . as well as a spiderweb of U.S.-designated terrorist groups."
She recently praised the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during an interview with Iranian state media, calling him the "greatest anti-imperialist leader" of her lifetime.
The report also notes that before embracing those positions, Walsh had relationships with organizations including the People's Forum, Code Pink and the Democratic Socialists of America—all groups identified as maintaining close ties with Cuba.
Among those organizations, the People's Forum receives some of the report's sharpest criticism.
Described as "one of the most significant left-wing protest groups in the United States," the organization has become a familiar presence at demonstrations opposing President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The report says the group's influence has grown alongside its finances.
According to the State Department, the People's Forum reported nearly $4.5 million in revenue during 2022, an increase of more than 800 percent from the previous year. The report attributes much of that growth to the political network of Shanghai-based American technology businessman Neville Roy Singham.
Singham and his wife, Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, are under investigation by U.S. authorities over suspected ties to Chinese intelligence services, according to the report.
The State Department alleges the People's Forum is "intimately linked to the Cuban regime."
Officials point to several examples.
The organization now serves as the fiscal sponsor for the Venceremos Brigade, allowing donations to flow through the nonprofit while shielding donor identities. It also helped organize the March 2026 Nuestra America Convoy, which delivered 20 tons of aid to Cuba in protest of the U.S. embargo and energy sanctions.
The report also notes the People's Forum organized a May 2023 trip that brought between 150 and 300 activists to Cuba, where they met with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Later that year, Díaz-Canel visited the organization's headquarters in New York.
The State Department also highlights the group's broader political activism, including participation in anti-ICE demonstrations and protests following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel.
Code Pink is another organization singled out in the report.
Known primarily for opposing American military intervention overseas, the anti-war group has maintained close ties with Cuba almost since its founding in 2002, according to the State Department. Co-founder Medea Benjamin lived in Cuba from 1979 through 1983, and the report describes the 2017 marriage of Jodie Evans and Neville Roy Singham as "a pivotal event" in the organization's relationship with foreign governments.
Since Cuba's mass protests in July 2021, the report says Code Pink has been a regular participant in campaigns supporting the Cuban regime. In March 2026, it chartered aircraft carrying more than 100 participants and 6,300 pounds of medical supplies for the Nuestra America Convoy.
The Democratic Socialists of America also receives extensive attention.
According to the report, the organization has steadily deepened its relationship with Cuba over the past several years. After announcing plans to join the National Network on Cuba in 2019, DSA created a Cuba Solidarity Working Group, organized official delegations to the island and established a "Venceremos Fund" that raises money to "support the struggle to dismantle U.S. empire."
The report argues Cuba's influence extends beyond formal organizations.
One of its longest-running propaganda successes, according to the State Department, involves Assata Shakur.
After escaping prison following her conviction in the killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, Shakur fled to Cuba, where she remained until her death in 2025.
The report argues Havana transformed Shakur into "the globally recognized face of the themes Havana had sought to push for decades — U.S. racism, black internationalism, anti-imperialism, and Cuba as the spiritual center of the Third World struggle."
That influence, officials argue, remains visible today.
Black Lives Matter's website features one of Shakur's best-known quotes: "It is our duty to fight for freedom." BLM co-founder Alicia Garza said in 2014 that the quote was a major influence on her organizing.
The report also points to Chicago-based Assata's Daughters, which says it develops young activists "in the spirit of Assata." According to the State Department, the organization's youth programming teaches children about "Assata Shakur and her revolutionary politic" before moving older participants into its activist training program known as "Assata's University."
The report closes by examining organizations that provide legal support during protests.
Chief among them is the National Lawyers Guild, which the State Department calls "one of the most persistently relevant – and insidious – organizations in Cuba's U.S. network."
"The association of extreme-left lawyers and radical street activists has played a key role in a disproportionate share of the far-left terror and violence that has plagued the United States from the 1960s up to today," the report states.
According to the State Department, the National Lawyers Guild's Mass Defense and Legal Observer programs provide legal observers at protests, coordinate bail funds and work to quickly secure the release of arrested demonstrators. The organization says it coordinated legal support for more than 20,000 people arrested during the 2020 George Floyd riots.
The report also points to the Guild's relationship with Antifa activists, citing a 2017 opinion piece written by leaders of its San Francisco chapter titled "We are all antifa."
Taken together, the State Department's findings argue that Cuba's influence campaign has evolved far beyond traditional espionage. Instead of recruiting spies in the classic Cold War sense, officials contend the regime has spent decades cultivating activists, nonprofit organizations and ideological allies capable of influencing American politics from within.
