Statement on State Department report “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism”
Date: July 24, 2026
Media Contact: For all press inquiries, please contact media@mdcdsa.org.
Washington, DC: The US State Department has released a report titled Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism. This report should be understood as part of the Trump Administration’s attempt to smear its domestic political opposition as malign foreign agents. It must be rejected as such.
From the first page to the last, this report makes unfounded allegations that critics of the administration’s foreign policy – particularly the Democratic Socialists of America, but including the National Lawyers’ Guild, CodePink, and Black Alliance for Peace, and other organizations – are “mirrors” or “inheritors” of the Cuban government’s supposed ideological victory in the U.S. Left. It breathlessly concludes that Cuban agents “maintain a foothold in hundreds of” groups such as ours, and moreover that everything from the 2020 racial justice protests to college students protesting against the genocide in Palestine is puppeted by this secret influence network. Of course, even this far-right fever dream of a report must admit: “DSA was not shaped by the direct and tangible influence of the Cuban government.”
As the DSA chapter in our nation’s capital, let us be clear: DSA’s positions and activities are determined democratically by our members. We oppose the US-imposed economic blockade on Cuba that makes ordinary life unbearable, support the right for all peoples to have self-determination, and oppose US interventionism abroad because of our own socialist principles, not because of the influence of any foreign government.
If the US government officials are concerned about growing international solidarity movements, they should examine how they are creating the crises that inspire those same solidarity movements. If the US government were not enforcing a stranglehold on the Cuban people, if it were not financing and arming a genocide in Palestine, if it were not illegally kidnapping foreign leaders, if it was not waging an illegal war on Iran, then there would be nothing to oppose. But these are the actions of our government, and we have a right and obligation to oppose them.
It is all Americans’ right to criticize and organize in solidarity against the unjust actions of our nation abroad. Solidarity is not foreign influence; it’s doing the right thing. When the actions of the United States bring suffering to ordinary people, whether they be in Cuba or elsewhere, DSA is proud to be part of the mass movement that opposes those actions. We have a world to win!