As the already agonizing 2024 presidential elections approach, a disturbing report reveals Cuba’s attempts to undermine our democratic process by targeting Florida-based and domestic political candidates who dislike the island’s repressive government.
A recent report from the US intelligence community reveals that Cuba attempted to influence the 2022 US midterm elections. Few details of the interference discovered or the damage caused have been revealed, but it was enough to warrant concern .
Of course, midterms were probably a practice session. If Cuba tried it two years ago, it will likely do it again in 2024, when a high-stakes presidential election hangs in the balance.
Interference in 2016
While other foreign adversaries, such as Russia and China, have also committed similar shenanigans, most notably during the 2016 presidential elections, the United States should be prepared to thwart this intrusion from an enemy just 90 miles away of the.
The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, reveals that the Cuban government has established relationships with sympathetic media outlets. He then used them to disseminate derogatory content against politicians opposed to the communist regime. The declassified portion of the intelligence assessment does not say how effective Havana’s influence campaign was on the Florida election, nor does it name the specific individuals who were targeted.
But it’s safe to say Cuba would want to target a Florida resident and presidential candidate. Donald Trump, a staunch anti-communist candidate who rolled back Obama-era concessions intended to thaw relations between the two countries. Cuba would not like to see Trump re-elected.
And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Cuba would also target Cuban-American members of Congress, many of whom reside in South Florida, as well as other local politicians known for their criticism of the towards the island’s government. Needless to say, this is an unacceptable effort by a foreign power to influence American voters and elections, and it must be addressed.
Alleged spy
The report on election interference came two weeks after the arrest of a once-senior analyst assigned to the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. He would have worked for the Cubans.
Víctor Manuel Rocha, 73, living among us in Miami, was a longtime American diplomat now known to pass information to the Cubans. He is awaiting a court date in January.
All of this is further evidence that Cuba is indeed on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, something Cuba has bitterly denied.
White House officials remained tight-lipped on whether the United States was considering retaliation for Cuba’s election interference. Still, Florida politicians, the likely targets, said the Biden administration should do more to respond to a threat they view as pernicious and persistent.
“The Biden administration must immediately condemn these actions, make clear that they will not be tolerated, and expel Cuban diplomats from American soil,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told McClatchy. “The continued failure to treat Cuba like the tyrannical spy regime that it is only emboldens it. »
The senator is right.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez said at a news conference in Doral that he believed he and fellow Republicans Maria Elvira Salazar and Mario Diaz-Balart had been targeted, although he said officials at American intelligence had not told him this directly.
“They redacted a lot of the report, but you can infer from what you can read who exactly they were talking about,” he said.
Diaz-Balart called this a “wake-up call” and said the United States must take a stand now: “Now is the time to impose tough consequences, including tougher sanctions, on the malicious dictatorship that seeks to harm our democracy. »
The Biden administration – and the rest of us – must assert that the integrity of our elections is not up for debate.
