A sweeping report from the State Department on Cuba’s “sustained campaign of subversion” against the U.S. contains the names of more than 40 prominent American activists and elected officials, what appears to be the latest effort from Donald Trump’s administration to target left-leaning dissent.The 100-page report claims Cuba’s government has “infiltrated the highest reaches” of U.S. government, “recruited and cultivated generations of American activists” and “backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil.” Cuba’s efforts have “turned America against itself,” according to the report, which approvingly cites Red Scare-era “blacklists” and the work of Rep. Joseph McCarthy.The report — released days after the Trump administration’s summit on “political terrorism” and escalating efforts to investigate and prosecute left-leaning groups — goes on to directly name more than three dozen groups and political figures, including the Democratic Socialists of America, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Ilhan Omar, among others.DSA, with a membership that has seen a growing number of electoral victories, is listed under a section labeled “front groups and fellow travelers.” The report also suggests Cuba has influenced, directly or indirectly, Black Lives Matter uprisings after George Floyd’s murder and antifascist protests against the Trump administration.Critics fear the report is being used as a pretextual argument for military actions against Havana’s communist government, as Trump administration officials increasingly crack down on legitimate political opposition from the left.A new report under Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims Cuba’s influence has tapped into the ‘highest reaches’ of the American government (Getty)The report makes “unfounded claims seeking to tar domestic movements for social change as agents of a foreign government,” according to Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, a nonprofit group supporting civil liberties.“The report smears activists, organizations and even elected officials using guilt-by-association techniques,” he said in a statement shared with The Independent. “It appears designed to justify both domestic political repression and regime change in Cuba.”The report does not provide any evidence that the figures or groups mentioned have received any directions from Cuba, only that they disagree with U.S. foreign policy and antagonistic relationship to Cuba’s government.It largely summarizes decades of Cold War-era ideological conflicts, stating that the left’s “growing disillusionment with the Soviet project was simultaneously accompanied by harsh government crackdowns against its domestic institutional organs — blacklists, McCarthy-era investigations and prosecutions, and a slate of anti-communist laws at both the state and federal levels.”“The Cubans,” meanwhile, “devoted themselves to recruiting, cultivating and mobilizing a global coalition of activists, intellectuals, and political groups around this cause, building a sprawling revolutionary network that shaped a disproportionate share of America’s most famous and influential extremist movements, from the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground through to antifa,” according to the report.That “revolutionary network” is now tied to “powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations” across the U.S., the report claims.Other figures named in the report include Democratic Reps. Ayanna Presley and Maxine Waters; Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen; former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin; Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman; streamer Hasan Piker; and Christian Smalls, the Amazon Labor Union organizer.The State Department report specifically mentions New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other prominent members of the Democratic Socialists of America (AP)The report’s characterization of Cuba as a dangerous superpower also stands in contrast to the president’s rhetoric about the impoverished island, which has been subject to a 60-year economic embargo and a months-long naval blockade with sweeping tariffs against any country that brings oil to the country.The country’s electricity grid has repeatedly gone dark; Trump said last month that the nation has “sort of collapsed” and that his administration would “handle” it after the war in Iran.“As soon as that’s done, on our way back, we’ll just make a little brief stop,” Trump told reporters last month.Cuba has been subject to a 60-year economic embargo and a months-long naval blockade with sweeping tariffs against any country that brings oil to the country, resulting in nationwide blackouts (Reuters)Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio held the “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism,” coordinating an international counterterrorism response to what the Trump administration is calling a “renewed threat” from the left.“For seven decades, the Cuban regime has been behind both the ideological underpinnings of third worldism and subversive organizing structures of the new radical left political terrorists that [Rubio] called out with clarity last week,” according to Jeremy Lewin, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance.Administration officials have repeatedly tied acts of political violence to Antifa, while also claiming without evidence that the movement is being financially supported by groups that support Democratic candidates — what critics fear is an attempt to criminalize political opposition itself.The president issued a national security directive in September that orders federal law enforcement agencies to “dismantle” groups accused of supporting acts of domestic terror “before” they’re committed, pointing to “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as identifiable markers.The Department of Justice has also opened a wider investigation into Antifa, which Trump and prosecutors are calling a criminal “enterprise” that can be prosecuted like the Mafia.The administration added four European left-wing groups to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations last year. The president also signed an executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the foreign list.