A new report warns that Cuba’s relationships with Russia, China and Iran could provide America’s adversaries with a strategic foothold just 90 miles from Florida, arguing that the island’s deepening economic crisis does not necessarily make it less dangerous to the United States.
The America First Policy Institute report, The Dictatorship Next Door: Cuba and the Fight for the Western Hemisphere, argues that Washington has too often viewed Cuba primarily as a human rights, migration or economic problem while overlooking the national security implications of Havana’s relationships with U.S. adversaries. The report says those partnerships create opportunities for intelligence collection, military cooperation, cyber operations and political influence close to the U.S. homeland.
"Cuba is a massive national security threat to the U.S.," report author Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of AFPI’s Western Hemisphere Initiative, told Fox News Digital in an interview ahead of the report’s release.
RUBIO WARNS CUBA HAS INFILTRATED US WITH SPIES, CALLS COMMUNIST REGIME AN 'ESPIONAGE SUPERPOWER'
"They are a hostile communist regime that is only 90 miles from Florida," Ford Maldonado said, arguing that Cuba has a decades-long history of working against American interests and supporting U.S. adversaries.
The report’s most concrete current concern centers on China and suspected intelligence facilities on the island.
A June 18, 2026, analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found continued activity at Cuban sites capable of supporting signals intelligence collection. CSIS said it had previously identified four such sites, several with possible links to China.
Ford Maldonado said she believes the broader evidence of Chinese intelligence activity on Cuba is compelling.
"There is a lot of credible evidence that there are Chinese bases and that there is spying going on in Cuba," she said, claiming that China has taken advantage of Cuba’s geographic position to monitor U.S. activity.
Russia’s relationship with Havana is older and more extensive.
Ford Maldonado described Moscow and Havana as increasingly "intimate, reliable partners," pointing to diplomatic and military cooperation as well as Cuban nationals joining Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
The number of Cubans fighting for Russia is contested. A U.S. State Department cable obtained by Reuters on Oct. 5, 2025 estimated that 1,000 to 5,000 Cubans were fighting in Ukraine alongside Russian forces. Reuters reported that Ukrainian officials had also raised concerns with U.S. lawmakers about Russia’s recruitment of Cuban nationals.
Cuba has denied sending troops to Ukraine. In an Oct. 11 statement reported by Reuters, the Cuban Foreign Ministry said Cuba was not participating in the conflict with military personnel and said it had prosecuted Cubans for mercenary activity. Havana said 40 defendants had faced criminal proceedings between 2023 and 2025, with 26 convicted.
Ukraine nevertheless closed its embassy in Havana in October 2025 and downgraded relations, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accusing Cuban authorities of failing to act against what Kyiv described as large-scale Russian recruitment of Cuban citizens, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The public evidence regarding Iran is considerably less developed — something Ford Maldonado acknowledged when pressed by Fox News Digital. "Iran was a little bit trickier," she said.
"There wasn’t that much substance that I could find to include it in the report," Ford Maldonado said, adding that she believes Iran has used Cuba primarily as a platform for influence operations.
"The evidence was not as substantive as we saw with China and Russia and Venezuela," she said.
The Trump administration has nevertheless grouped Iran with Russia and China in its own assessment of Cuba.
US SANCTIONS FIVE CUBAN ENTITIES, CASTRO FAMILY MEMBER IN LATEST PRESSURE CAMPAIGN, RUBIO SAYS
In a Jan. 29, 2026, executive order, President Donald Trump declared Cuba’s policies an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security and said Havana aligns itself with Russia, China, Iran and Iran proxies – Hezbollah and Hamas. The order also accused Cuba of hosting foreign military and intelligence capabilities and specifically alleged deep intelligence and defense cooperation with China and Russian signals-intelligence activity.
AFPI’s report calls for a substantially tougher U.S. response.
"We are not advocating for new American bases," she clarified. Instead, she said Washington could pursue expanded access agreements, overflight rights, cooperative security locations and stronger regional partnerships.
"The objective is just permanent and persistent ... American capability," Ford Maldonado said.
The call for even greater pressure, however, comes as ordinary Cubans are enduring a severe humanitarian crisis.
Power outages were exceeding 20 hours a day in most provinces, Reuters reported Aug. 13, 2026, crippling food production, transportation and tourism and pushing Cuba’s electrical system toward technical collapse. Reuters described the situation as one of the most severe economic and political crises in Cuba’s modern history and said it had been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s oil restrictions and hardened sanctions.
A July 7 investigation by Human Rights Watch described severe shortages of food and medicine, prolonged blackouts, water shortages and deteriorating living conditions.
WALTZ WARNS OF CHINESE, RUSSIAN-FUELED ‘NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT’ LOOMING CLOSE TO US SHORES
HRW attributed Cuba’s crisis to multiple factors, including longstanding structural inefficiencies in its highly state-controlled economy, decades of U.S. restrictions on trade and financing, the collapse of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent tightening of U.S. sanctions. HRW said the 2026 restrictions on oil supplies further deepened the energy crisis.
Critics of the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure strategy argue that further squeezing an already collapsing economy risks worsening civilian suffering and triggering additional instability and migration.
On June 8, UN-appointed independent human rights experts called for the sanctions to be lifted, arguing that they were putting Cubans’ access to essential goods and services at risk.
Asked about that broader criticism, Ford Maldonado said the blame belongs with Havana rather than Washington.
"Maximum pressure isn’t harming the Cuban people, it’s harming their regime," she said, arguing that the Cuban government and Cuban people should be treated as distinct.
"One has brutalized and repressed the other for 67 years now," Ford Maldonado said. "So maximum pressure is what’s necessary from the United States and from the rest of the world in order to be able to help the Cuban people."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Russian, Chinese and Iranian embassies but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
