The Cuban regime has long sponsored a vast subversive network in the United States aimed at identifying, cultivating, and radicalizing subversives, often operating under the pretext of educational or cultural exchange.
Recently, the regime attempted to use communist kingpin and despot Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday to reinvigorate this subversive network, ferrying a new brigade of international sympathizers to Havana to network with regime officials, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement. “The Trump Administration will not stand by while a hostile foreign power seeks to exploit our freedoms ... by misleading and corrupting American citizens with lies, spy tradecraft, and other malfeasance as part of the regime’s raison d’être of exporting Marxism, racial resentment, and Communist violence across the world.”
Pursuant to President Trump’s May 1 Executive Order, “Imposing Sanctions on Those Responsible for Repression in Cuba and for Threats to United States National Security and Foreign Policy,” Secretary Rubio designated three leaders of the sanctioned Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).
This includes ICAP President Fernando González Llort. Llort is a convicted Cuban spy who served 15 years in U.S. prison for his role in the infamous Wasp Network, a massive illegal Cuban spy ring uncovered in Florida in the late 1990s. He has continued his efforts to destabilize the United States following his return to Cuba.
Secretary Rubio also designated nine entities, including the Ministry of Construction of Cuba, that sustain the regime’s repressive apparatus through control of key economic sectors.
These designations make clear that the administration of President Donald Trump “will not tolerate the Cuban regime’s efforts to fund its repression or continue its decades-long campaign of subversive anti-American activities,” Secretary Rubio declared.
These moves are based on the January 2026 executive order that finds the policies, practices, and actions of the Cuban government “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat ... to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
President Trump noted that the government of Cuba harms the United States through its support of hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors that seek to destroy the United States.
Indeed, the regime provides assistance to numerous hostile countries and terrorist groups, including Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Cuba has long delivered defense, intelligence, and security assistance to adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, attempting to thwart United States and international sanctions designed to enforce the stability of the region, uphold the rule of law, and safeguard the national security and foreign policy of the United States.
Moreover, the Cuban communist regime persecutes and tortures its political opponents; denies the Cuban people free speech and press; corruptly profits from their misery; and commits other human-rights violations.
The United States has zero tolerance for the depredations of the communist Cuban regime and will hold it accountable for its malign actions and relationships, while also remaining committed to supporting the Cuban people’s aspirations for a free and democratic society.