By Alan Macleod
In the face of escalating US aggression against the island of Cuba through a “maximum pressure” campaign and the threat of military intervention, the US government is secretly funding a huge network of Cuban media outlets posing as independent in order to promote regime change against the independent socialist government.
These media outlets present themselves as unbiased investigative journalism, but are quietly funded by Washington through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Open Society Foundation to sow discontent in the Caribbean nation and prepare it for a potentially “imminent” invasion by the Trump administration.
Cuba is facing some of the worst power outages in its history, caused by the US blockade, which is attempting to bring the island to its knees. As a communist state that defies US orders, Cuba has been in Washington’s crosshairs since 1959, with the US trying to overthrow the government. MintPress sheds light on this murky connection surrounding the regime change.
Independent journalism, presented by the Foreign Ministry
CubaNet is one of the most influential and established news outlets covering events on the Caribbean island. Founded in 1994 by anti-government activists, the website has become the preferred source of information for mainstream media outlets, which regularly reference it and present it as an objective and unbiased independent medium (e.g., The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and The Los Angeles Times). CubaNet reporters have contributed op-eds to major US newspapers such as USA Today, calling for an immediate change of government on the island.
But CubaNet is not as independent as it seems. The platform is funded by the US security apparatus. CubaNet has received millions of dollars in funding from USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Open Society Foundation.
For example, a current USAID grant of $500,000 was awarded to CubaNet to “engage young Cubans on the island through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism.” While this may seem like a laudable goal on the surface, the grant’s one-line description suggests that its purpose is to undermine and attack the Cuban government. It states that it is intended (emphasis added) to “increase the free flow of information to and from Cuba to counteract the regime’s disinformation campaigns.”
Another news organization receiving vast sums of money from Washington is ADN Cuba. Its name literally means “Cuba’s DNA,” and the outlet has amassed a considerable online following: it boasts over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, over 200,000 on Instagram, and over 1.3 million on Facebook. It describes itself as “an independent media company dedicated to freedom and democracy in Cuba.” In reality, however, it is based in Spain. And it doesn’t appear to be particularly transparent about its funding.
However, it is clear that ADN Cuba has received millions of dollars from the US security apparatus. In September 2024, USAID approved a grant of $1.1 million for ADN Cuba – a gigantic sum for an organization that barely publishes one article per day on its website.
This was in addition to an allocation of $1.5 million for the period 2022–2024. In fact, ADN Cuba has received more than $3 million from USAID alone since 2020. This connection is not disclosed to readers—even in articles that report directly on USAID funding of Cuban media—and is relegated to the footnotes of obscure databases on US government funding.
Diario de Cuba is another Spanish-language news outlet that publishes a wide variety of articles, all sharing one common thread: a deep-seated aversion to the Cuban government. The BBC describes it and CubaNet as important sources of impartial news, run by journalists who “report without censorship and paint a more comprehensive picture of the country’s reality.”
And just like CubaNet, Diario de Cuba has received a seven-figure sum in funding from Washington. Between 2016 and 2020, Diario de Cuba received $1.3 million in USAID funding—almost as much as CubaNet during the same period. This generous funding has enabled the outlet to reach a global audience, with over 600,000 followers on Facebook alone.
Networks for regime change
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used to directly (and secretly) fund hundreds of media outlets worldwide. However, after a series of scandals came to light and more information about its nefarious activities was revealed, Washington decided to outsource many of its most controversial foreign operations to organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
“It would be terrible if democratic groups around the world were perceived as being subsidized by the CIA,” said Carl Gershman, the NED’s longtime president, explaining the 1983 decision to found his organization. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein concurred: “Much of what we do today was done covertly by the CIA 25 years ago,” he told the Washington Post.
Under the guise of promoting democracy and human rights, the US government channels funds to political and social groups around the world to maximize its strategic goals, including regime change.
In recent years, the US has used the two organizations NED and USAID to finance anti-government protests in Hong Kong, to pursue a color revolution in Belarus, to overthrow the government of Ukraine in 2014, and to organize unrest throughout Iran earlier this year.
In Cuba, the NED and USAID played a crucial role in organizing a (failed) uprising against the government in 2021. In particular, USAID spent millions of dollars to fund, organize, and promote the San Isidro movement—a collective of musicians, artists, and journalists—so that it could lead a counter-revolution on the island.
Members of San Isidro spearheaded a wave of nationwide protests in July. The demonstrations were immediately amplified by Western mainstream media, top celebrities, and US politicians, including President Biden. The online community was flooded with the artificially staged “SOS Cuba” campaign, which trended online for days.
Ultimately, however, the coordinated efforts of the USA failed to convince ordinary Cubans to take to the streets, and the movement quickly fizzled out.
Esteban Rodríguez, an important member of the San Isidro movement, is a producer at ADN Cuba.
If US funding dries up, “independent” media outlets collapse immediately.
The importance of US government funding for the survival and operation of these media outlets became clear early last year when the Trump administration decided to freeze funding for USAID and the NED. In announcing this decision, Elon Musk, then head of the Department of Government Efficiency, specifically referred to USAID as a “snake nest of radical left-wing Marxists who hate America.”
The impact on Cuban media was immediate. As soon as the funds dried up, dozens of organizations faced immediate closure. CubaNet published an urgent editorial appealing to readers to help close the funding gap. “We are facing an unexpected challenge: the suspension of vital funding that has supported some of our work,” they wrote. “If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask for your support.” “Without [USAID] funds, it will be extremely difficult to continue,” added CubaNet Director Roberto Hechavarría Pilia.
Diario de Cuba found itself in a similarly precarious situation. Its director, Pablo Díaz Espí, noted that “support for independent journalism by the United States government has been suspended, making our work more difficult,” and asked readers for donations.
Musk’s decision inadvertently revealed a vast network of over 6,200 reporters and nearly 1,000 media outlets worldwide that were quietly trained, supported, and funded by the CIA’s front organization – all under the guise of promoting “independent” media and freedom of information.
Another supposedly independent Cuban media outlet that fell victim to the crisis was El Toque (The Touch). Founded in 2014, El Toque receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NED. The outlet publishes in Spanish and English and attempts to manipulate exchange rates in Cuba.
The funding cut hit them hard: The editorial team announced that they would have to immediately lay off half of their staff (15 people) and stop working with dozens of freelancers while they searched for alternative sources of funding.
El Estornudo (The Sneeze) is also generously funded by the NED. In 2021 alone, the foundation granted the investigative media company $180,000. It also receives substantial support from the Open Society Foundation, although it insists that none of this US funding is subject to conditions or influences its reporting.
While Western media often portray the Cuban media landscape as a David and Goliath battle—between courageous, independent media outlets facing repression and a sprawling, state-funded propaganda machine—the enormous sums of money paid to these “underdogs” make them by far the best-funded media outlets on the island. For example, a 2023 Guardian article profiled 24-year-old photojournalist Pedro Sosa, who worked for both El Toque and El Estornudo. The article described the two publications as “providers of genuine reporting as opposed to the cumbersome state media” and their journalists as poor and vulnerable truth-tellers fighting for “freedom” and subject to state “raids.”
But it also revealed that working for US-backed media isn’t the bad career move it’s portrayed as, but in reality an extremely lucrative profession. It’s mentioned in passing that salaries at the tiny El Toque are ten times higher than those of even the most senior journalists in Cuban state media. In reality, these suppressed champions of free speech are among the richest people on the entire island – thanks to the power of the US dollar, which pays them handsomely to produce a constant stream of news critical of the government.
Ultimately, the US-backed media had nothing to worry about, and funding from NED and USAID was resumed after some restructuring.
Positions for one’s own people
All of this, however, pales in comparison to the resources the US has provided to Radio and TV Martí. Founded in 1985 by the Reagan administration, the Miami-based network employs dozens of full-time staff and receives tens of millions of dollars annually from Washington.
Unlike the rest of the media industry, the employees of Radio and TV Martí enjoy high job security and six-figure salaries, even though the Cuban government can disrupt and block many of their broadcasts, preventing them from reaching Cuba – meaning that very few people consume their content.
Since its founding, Washington has spent at least $800 million on Radio and TV Martí.
The media outlets presented here represent only a small part of the network of government-critical media that are funded by the United States. Most recipients of American funds remain anonymous—a decision made in part to conceal their identities and maintain their credibility within Cuba.
The National Endowment for Democracy considers Cuba a “long-standing priority” and currently officially funds 32 separate projects on the island.
The media-related grants include an $80,000 project called “Strengthening Access to Information,” which promises the following:
“To improve access to information and promote critical thinking, the organization will produce daily reports and analyses in various formats, offering independent perspectives on issues affecting citizens’ daily lives, including freedom of expression, public safety, human rights and other pressing social concerns.”
A further grant of US$115,000 entitled “Expanding Access to Uncensored Media” stipulates that:
“To promote independent information, the organization will offer narrative journalism on censored topics, conduct research and produce background articles, photo essays and opinion pieces, while simultaneously strengthening the operational capacity of the media.”
In thirty-one of the thirty-two projects, the recipient’s name and identity are concealed, meaning that those groups working with the CIA-like organization as a cover are usually only identified when they make this relationship public or ask for help – as was the case when US funding was temporarily suspended in 2025.
Media outlets critical of the government are just a small part of the vast array of groups that Washington secretly funds and supports. From musicians and academics to civil society, educational, and religious groups, as well as think tanks, charities, and NGOs, there is a huge network of organizations that receive enormous sums of money from the US government.
These institutions include, among others, the Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos (Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, OCDH) and the lawyers’ group Cubalex.
Both groups produce reports denouncing the Cuban government and are regularly cited in Western media outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post as impartial authorities on human rights in Cuba. What is not revealed to readers, however, is that both organizations are funded by the US security apparatus.
Documents show that USAID provided nearly $1.5 million to the OCDH. Meanwhile, support from the NED was crucial for the establishment of Cubalex in 2010, and Washington continues to pay its employees’ salaries. As the organization’s executive director, Laritza Diversent, stated last year:
“Without the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, Cubalex would not exist; to do our work, we need resources. The NED has supported us for 14 years. Last October, after many attempts, we also received a grant from the Department of State.”
Thus, there is hardly any area of the Cuban opposition critical of the government that has not been reached by US funds, whether through government organizations such as the NED or USAID, or through institutions such as the Ford Foundation and the Open Societies Foundation, which have historically played a similar role in promoting American interests abroad.
Many of these groups are based in South Florida, where US government funds help subsidize thousands of jobs for the Cuban-American community. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that a significant portion of Miami’s economy is propped up by taxpayer money used to finance counter-revolutionary forces. This is ironic, given that conservative Cubans often vehemently oppose government social programs in both the US and Cuba.
Digital bombardment
In 2010, a new social media and messaging app called Zunzuneo took Cuba by storm. It went viral seemingly out of nowhere and gained tens of thousands of users – a very large number for an island with such limited internet access at the time.
None of the users were aware, however, that the platform had been secretly created by USAID to promote regime change. Their plan was to first offer an excellent service that would conquer the market, then gradually introduce anti-government messages to Cubans, and finally persuade them to join “smart mobs” with the goal of triggering a color revolution.
To conceal its own involvement in the project, the US government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to persuade him to invest. It is unclear to what extent Dorsey assisted, as he has refused to comment on the matter.
Zunzuneo was abruptly shut down in 2012, possibly because the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (which oversees TV and Radio Marti) had already launched a new program called Piramideo.
Piramideo marketed itself as an app that allowed Cubans to receive world news for free and without censorship. Almost immediately, however, locals reported being bombarded with fake news about anti-government protests that had never taken place. Piramideo was shut down in 2015 after reports of US government interference in Cuba triggered a scandal and diplomatic embarrassment.
Today, however, with Cubans increasingly using American social media apps, this type of deception is largely unnecessary, as it can be carried out quite openly. During the 2021 San Isidro protests, apps like Instagram and Twitter openly participated in the attempt to overthrow the government and did nothing to stop a massive boom in clearly fake bot accounts that parroted the exact same messages (right down to the typos) and used the same artificially generated hashtag. Twitter’s editorial team even placed the protests—which drew barely a few thousand people nationwide—at the top of its “What’s Happening” section for over 24 hours, meaning that every user worldwide was notified. The failed coup has become known as the “Bay of Tweets.”
The endless war against Cuba
In October, the UN voted for the 33rd consecutive time, by an overwhelming majority (165 to 7), to demand an end to the US blockade against Cuba. This economic war was imposed by the Eisenhower administration in response to the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which overthrew the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
These illegal unilateral coercive measures, which according to an internal US government memo are aimed at “reducing cash and real wages, causing hunger and despair and overthrowing the government,” cost Cuba billions every year and significantly hinder its development.
The US attempted to invade Cuba in 1961, bringing the world to the brink of destruction during the ensuing Cuban Missile Crisis. They reportedly made hundreds of assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro and carried out a wave of terrorist attacks against the country, including the use of biological weapons on the island.
Successive administrations continued the economic war against Cuba, which intensified after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the State Department under Trump, headed by the Cuban-American politician Marco Rubio, took this war to a new level, making the island one of its top priorities.
Trump himself has stated that Cuba is “next” on the list of countries targeted for regime change. “We might stop by Cuba when we’re done with Iran,” he said last month.
In response, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared that his country was ready to repel any US invasion, as it had already done during the Bay of Pigs invasion, and stated:
“The situation is extremely difficult and once again demands that we be prepared, as on April 16, 1961, to confront serious threats, including military aggression. We do not want this, but it is our duty to prepare to avoid it and, if it becomes unavoidable, to defeat it.”
Against this background, the US government’s funding of numerous media outlets that are critical of Cuba must be seen; the media attack is just one aspect of Washington’s multifaceted approach to regime change.
Many of the organizations presented here publish in English, and almost all are used by Western mainstream media as supposedly credible sources of information on Cuba, which means that the narratives of the US State Department are introduced into the public consciousness through this network.
Many Cubans and Americans are completely unaware that their news about the island largely comes from a network of dubious media outlets, quietly funded by the US security apparatus through the NED and USAID. Their goal is to maintain a steady stream of negative reports to prepare the public to accept regime change on the island. After all, in war, truth is always the first casualty.
