The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated this Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Cuba has sponsored terrorism and has supported virtually all violent leftist terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere.
Rubio appeared before his former Senate colleagues to defend the State Department's budget for fiscal year 2027, and he took the opportunity during the hearing to reiterate the Trump administration's stance on the Havana regime.
Cuba has sponsored terrorism. For example, practically all radical leftist violent terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere have relied at some point on support from Cuba," Rubio stated during his testimony.
The Secretary of State explicitly mentioned the ELN (National Liberation Army), the FARC, and their dissidents as organizations that have received Cuban support.
In addition to highlighting the connection with armed groups, Rubio warned about the presence of spying facilities on the island: "Cuba continues to host a considerable collection of intelligence sites on behalf of China and Russia."
Concern over these facilities has grown in Washington in recent months. The Center for Strategic and International Studies identified at least 12 Chinese signals intelligence sites in Cuba in December 2024, located in areas such as Bejucal, El Wajay, Calabazar, and El Salao.
Reports from 2025 and 2026 indicate that China and Russia have nearly tripled their intelligence personnel on the island since 2023, with the ability to intercept military and civilian communications from the southeastern United States from just 160 kilometers away from Florida.
The statements from this Tuesday are in line with a position that Rubio has consistently held. During his confirmation hearing as Secretary of State in January 2025, he described then-President Biden's decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism as "an absolutely shameful and reckless decision."
Biden had removed Cuba from that list on January 14, 2025. The Trump administration reinstated the designation days later, upon taking office on January 20 of that year, with Rubio as one of its main advocates.
In January 2026, Rubio accused the Cuban regime of protecting William Morales, linked to the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing, as further evidence of Havana's hostility towards the United States.
The Cuban government rejects the designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and calls it a "falsehood," claiming that Washington has tolerated actions against Cuba from its own territory. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla accused Rubio in May of instigating aggression against the island.
The United States Congress demanded a report from the Pentagon on the intelligence capabilities of China and Russia in Cuba before June 2026, precisely the month when Rubio will reaffirm before the Senate that, in his opinion, the island remains a strategic threat node for the hemisphere.
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