The Republican congressman Carlos A. Giménez, representative of Florida's 28th district and the only member of Congress born in Cuba, demanded this Monday the expulsion of China from the Western Hemisphere.
“Communist China has no place in the Western Hemisphere and must be expelled,” said Giménez on X, where he accused Beijing of “actively trying to undermine America in our own hemisphere by providing a lifeline to Havana.”
The tweet was accompanied by an image of the opinion piece "Don't Let China Rescue Cuba", published days earlier in The Hill by analyst Gordon G. Chang, who details the presence of Chinese intelligence on the island and proposes concrete measures to remove it.
Chang cites in his text a report from the State Department dated July 2026, titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," which concludes that Beijing actively operates three of the 18 known signals intelligence facilities in Cuba.
The official document classifies that presence as an "acute risk to the operational military security of the United States" and describes Cuba as one of China's "most critical foreign listening posts."
R. Evan Ellis from the U.S. Army War College pointed out to Chang that China may have operated listening posts in Cuba since 1993.
"China is vigilant about any military action by the U.S. in Cuba, but it will likely cling to its valuable electronic and signals intelligence facilities until the day it is expelled," warned Ellis.
The immediate context of Giménez's statements includes the sanctions imposed by the State Department on August 6 against Waldo Pérez Cortés, the Cuban military representative in China, who is accused of facilitating the acquisition of technology from that country to the island. This measure was part of a broader package that affected eight individuals and five entities linked to the military apparatus and the conglomerate GAESA.
China intensifies its energy support for the Cuban regime
Cuban imports of Chinese solar panels rose from about three million dollars in 2023 to 117 million in 2025, and at the beginning of August, Beijing delivered a new batch of 5,000 photovoltaic systems intended for the 169 municipalities of the country.
The retired general of the U.S. Air Force Blaine Holt, former deputy military adviser to NATO, suggested to Chang a strong response: "We can do to the Chinese in Cuba what they do to us in the South China Sea: take actions just below the threshold of war. Create pain. Stick them with a million pins."
Holt specifically suggested restricting flights to and from the island to cut off the "lifeline" to Chinese personnel, and also to block the entry of new solar panels.
The Cuban regime, through Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, has denied the existence of Chinese intelligence or military bases on the island, labeling the accusations as "slander."
Giménez, who has been a part of the Select Committee on China since January 2023, was rated by the China Data Lab at the University of California, San Diego as the congressman who has publicly condemned that country the most times: 173 occasions since the beginning of the 118th Congress.
Related videos:
Filed under: