The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stated this Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Cuba continues to operate a network of intelligence facilities on behalf of China and Russia, and that the Havana regime has actively sponsored leftist terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere.
Rubio appeared before the Senate to defend the Department of State's budget for the fiscal year 2027, but his statements about Cuba captured a significant portion of the audience's attention.
Cuba has sponsored terrorism. Almost all radical, violent, leftist terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere have relied at some point on support from Cuba," stated the Secretary of State.
Rubio explicitly mentioned the National Liberation Army (ELN), the FARC, and their dissidents as organizations that have received Cuban support at various times.
About espionage, he was equally direct: «Cuba continues to host a rather substantial collection of intelligence sites on behalf of China and Russia».
These statements align with the findings of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which identified in December 2024 at least 12 signal intelligence facilities linked to China in Cuba, located in Bejucal, El Wajay, Calabazar, and El Salao.
Bejucal is described by the CSIS as the most active site on the island, with updates recorded in satellite imagery from March 2024, including a new antenna dome and a large CDAA-type antenna.
The site of El Salao, near Santiago de Cuba, has been under construction since 2021 and is located about 70 miles from the Guantanamo Naval Base, featuring a projected antenna with a diameter between 130 and 200 meters.
The facilities have the capacity to intercept military and civilian communications from the southeastern United States from as little as 160 kilometers from Florida.
Reports from 2025 and 2026 indicate that China and Russia have nearly tripled their intelligence personnel in Cuba since 2023, a trend that the U.S. Congress had required the Pentagon to document before this June.
The audience on Tuesday was not without incidents. Two pro-regime activists interrupted Rubio as he was entering the room, shouting "Stop killing Cubans; repent."
Rubio's positions on Cuba are consistent with those he has held since before taking office. In 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."
The Trump administration reversed that decision on the very day of its inauguration, January 20, 2025, reinstating Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.
China rejected the accusations regarding intelligence facilities on the island in April, describing them as "manufacturing pretexts and spreading rumors," while Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla accused Rubio in May of instigating aggression against Cuba.
Cuba has been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism by the Department of State almost continuously since 1982, and Rubio's statements before the Senate this Tuesday reinforce that the Trump administration has no intention of changing that designation.
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