The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) warned in a briefing on Monday that the communist regime of Cuba is looking to actively interfere in America’s 2024 election, not only influencing votes for president but seeking to aid pro-communist candidates in local and congressional races.
“Havana almost certainly has considered influence efforts targeting some candidates,” an unnamed ODNI official told reporters. “Havana may be, as it has done in previous cycles, trying to curry favor from congressional and sub-national politicians that it believes will support its preferred policies.”
“Havana is very focused on a few policy issues that it believes to be negatively impacting the regime, particularly the U.S. embargo on Cuba and other economic and travel restrictions, all of which Havana perceives as an effort to force regime change,” the official continued.
The Castro regime has for decades railed against what is commonly known as the American economic “embargo,” a series of regulations that mildly limit economic activity between the two countries. The embargo does nothing to stop humanitarian aid, food, or medicine from entering the country; America is Cuba’s largest supplier of chicken, for example. The embargo does ban America’s massive travel and technology companies from interacting directly from the over half-century-old violent communist regime, however, and curbs some tourism, though it notably does little to stop Americans from visiting the island. Cubans face significant restrictions on their travel freedoms imposed directly by the Communist Party, particularly regarding travel to America.
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Despite the relatively minimal impact on Cuba’s international trade from the embargo, the Castro regime regularly demands it be lifted so that its leaders, running a government known for state sponsorship of terrorism, can access America’s prodigious markets and fund their lavish lifestyles. They also regularly engage leftists and communist sympathizers in America to agitate on their behalf.
The ODNI listed Cuba alongside Russia and China as countries “supporting or denigrating candidates involved in congressional, state, and local races.” Officials suggested Florida local races were particularly vulnerable to Cuban influence.
“Havana considers election influence activities as part of its standing requirements to influence those policies, and Florida is a prime target of their activities,” one official said. “To that end, we have observed Cuba tailoring influence activities based on its perception of a candidate’s stances on policies toward Cuba. For example, in 2020 Havana intended to denigrate specific candidates in Florida and pushed influence narratives to the Latin American community in the United States.”
Citing a greater ODNI report on election interference, the independent outlet Cubanet on Tuesday reported that the American agency described Cuba as “not new to these intents, but the current conditions allow them to intensify their efforts.” In addition to contacting sympathetic candidates, the ODNI suggested that Cuba is bombarding Americans with “disinformation” campaigns to favor the communist agenda.
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“Disinformation is a powerful tool used to generate distrust in the electoral system and augment internal divisions in the United States,” one ODNI official was quoted as saying.
The Cuban government has overtly interfered with American politics throughout the past year. Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, routinely attacks Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for the actions he took to limit windfall profits for the regime during his first term as president. In April, Granma published an outraged article condemning Trump for promising voters that he would impose significant limitations on funding for the regime.
“The Trump goverment put a special emphasis on blocking the principal sources of income and damaging our commercial relations with the world,” Granma complained, listing among its top complaints Trump allowing Americans whose property was stolen during the 1959 coup that brought Fidel Castro to power to sue Cuba in U.S. courts.
The regime has also more directly involved itself in American politics by supporting communists in the U.S. In September, for example, several high-ranking Communist Party officials were allowed to travel to Atlanta, Georgia, where they engaged in meetings with radical leftist agitators in the local community. The officials were reportedly invited by a “progressive” radio station known as “Radio Free Georgia,” a play on the U.S. government’s series of anti-communist broadcasters used during the Cold War.
The Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) proudly published photos of the meeting, saying its members were “honored” to meet with the oppressive communists.
That same month, in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, Cuban communist officials held an event billed as intended to forge closer ties between the regime and Cubans abroad, but served mostly to encourage Cubans who had fled the regime to fund it.
“The interest of co-nationals [Cubans abroad] in participating in the economic development of the country and the growing opportunities for businesses in Cuba was also discussed,” Cuba’s Ministry of External Affairs (Minrex) said in a readout of the event.
More indirectly, the Cuban regime has in the past used America’s free social media outlets to spread communist propaganda through automated accounts. In 2018, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, a Florida-based human rights group, documented the existence of dozens of Twitter accounts linked to the communist regime, spreading propaganda pretending to be regular Cuban citizens who loved their government. In reality, many of the accounts used stock photos of young people or photos of foreign celebrities. Following an inquiry by Breitbart News, Twitter shut down many of the accounts.
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