US Says Cuba Infiltrated "Highest Reaches" Of American Government

The United States on Monday accused Cuba of infiltrating the highest levels of government in Washington, as President Donald Trump intensifies his campaign to force an end to communist rule of the island.

A US State Department report alleged that Cuba's decades-long espionage campaign was "one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history."

Cuba "has infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists (and) backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil," the report said.

While the allegations represent an escalation in US-Cuba tensions, espionage between the two countries has long been known and the report released Monday contained little new information.

It coincides with a revival of alarmist, Cold War-style warnings -- spearheaded by Trump -- about left-wing extremism in the United States and of a communist "menace" that needs to be cut out "like a cancer."

In 2015, then president Barack Obama attempted a rapprochement with the Cuban government, hoping a more diplomatic approach would yield better relations after a half-century of hostility.

Trump quickly restored a hardline stance, reinstating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Trump has repeatedly signaled that the Cuban government could be next after Venezuela to fall to US pressure, and said in June that Washington would be "taking over" the Caribbean island, about 90 miles (145 km) from Florida, "almost immediately."

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