Marco Rubio has accused Iran-linked networks and Cuba’s intelligence apparatus of helping fuel violent far-left extremism, warning world leaders that political terrorism “can no longer be ignored.” The US secretary of state made the remarks during a State Department ministerial on the resurgence of political terrorism, attended by representatives from more than 60 countries.
Rubio said the United States and its allies were facing a new wave of violent political extremism that had been overlooked for too long.
He urged governments to treat the issue as a global counterterrorism priority, arguing that violent far-left groups now operate across borders through shared financing, propaganda, encrypted communications and safe houses.
Rubio specifically pointed to Antifa militants and allied groups, claiming they travel between Europe and the Americas to participate in attacks, share training materials and coordinate through underground networks.
He also alleged that hostile foreign states had helped sustain the movement, and Iranian proxy networks are becoming “increasingly intimately tied” to leftist militant groups around the world.
Rubio accused Cuba’s intelligence and ideological networks of helping build the far left in the United States and across the hemisphere, framing the threat as ideological as much as operational, as they despise the West because the West is great.
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The claims mark one of the administration’s strongest attempts yet to link domestic political violence, foreign adversaries and anti-Western radical movements into a single global threat picture.
Rubio said more Foreign Terrorist Organization designations are coming after the State Department designated four foreign far-left groups in November 2025.
Those groups included Antifa Ost, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front, Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense, which the administration says operate in Germany, Italy and Greece.
A Foreign Terrorist Organization designation makes it a crime to provide material support to the group, allows US authorities to freeze assets under American jurisdiction and blocks members from entering the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller were also expected to address the ministerial, with sessions focused on terrorist financing, intelligence sharing and protecting critical infrastructure.
Critics argue that grouping disparate groups under one banner could conflate local activism with terrorism, risking overreach.
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The administration’s framing relies on tying scattered incidents to a coordinated foreign-backed campaign — a claim that will require more than speeches to substantiate.
A senior State Department official rejected that concern, saying the administration is focused on criminal violence, not beliefs.
Rubio further described radical leftism as “a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice.”
Administration officials argue that Western governments have spent two decades concentrating on Islamist terrorism while failing to recognise a revived threat from violent far-left networks.
They cited recent attacks in Greece and Germany, including firebombings and infrastructure sabotage, as examples of why international cooperation is needed.
