Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised concerns about Cuba’s ability to infiltrate and influence top-level U.S. institutions, detailing what he described as a dangerous Cuban spy network that is undermining American interests.
"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," he told "My View with Lara Trump" on Saturday.
His comments follow the State Department’s recent release of a 100-page report detailing Cuba’s influence operations in the U.S., linking the nation to Antifa and radical activism while labeling it the "capital of 21st-century communism."
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"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," he said.
"We had… a U.S. ambassador, who ended up being a Cuban spy and was recently convicted," he continued. "We've had them penetrate the highest levels of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)."
Former U.S. ambassador and national security official Manuel Rocha pleaded guilty to and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for acting as a secret agent for Cuba for decades.
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Rubio said Ana Belén Montes, a DIA analyst who was found passing American secrets to Cuba, represents one of the "single biggest intelligence failures" and potentially the most serious penetration in U.S. history.
The secretary also told Fox News that Cuba employs networks of protesters across the country to advocate for different causes in an effort to pressure U.S. lawmakers.
The secretary claimed that pro-Hamas, anti-ICE and pro-Maduro protests are all linked to the same network of Cuban-hired protesters.
"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.
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"And it's a network they will weaponize against us," he continued. "And they talk about it openly, about how they will use that network to pressure American policymakers."
Rubio also accused Cuba of running dangerous influence campaigns throughout Latin America.
"If you look all throughout Latin America, every communist left-wing insurgency that's destabilized governments across the region, 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," the secretary said.
Critics of the State Department’s report suggest the report chronicling how Cuba poses a threat to the United States is a scare tactic to potentially justify U.S. military action against the country.
Rubio dismissed Americans who sympathize with Cuba’s one-party communist republic led by President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
"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," he 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.
