Congress Examines Foreign Influence Networks Tied to China, Iran and Cuba
A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing titled «Trojan Horses» examines how American activists, nonprofits and social media influencers allegedly advance the interests of adversarial nations including China, Iran and Cuba inside the United States.
A House Foreign Affairs subcommittee convened a hearing titled «Trojan Horses: Covert Foreign Malign Influence Operations in America» to examine how American activists, nonprofit organizations, media operations and social media influencers allegedly advance the interests of adversarial nations, including China, Iran and Cuba, inside the United States.
The hearing, led by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., chairman of the Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, brought together several strands of alleged foreign influence documented over the past year through investigations into money, political organizing, overseas travel, media operations and relationships between American activists and foreign entities.
«Adversarial nations like China, Russia, and Cuba conduct malign influence operations here in the United States by utilizing social media influencers such as Hasan Piker as proxies to promote communism and push their false propaganda,» Huizenga said. «My goal is to raise the curtain to expose these operations and stop them from undermining our national security, capitalism and the American Dream.»
The hearing follows a series of confrontations and disclosures involving groups that critics describe as vehicles for foreign propaganda. At a panel discussion near the White House last week, Christine Balling, a former advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command South, and Michael Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, spoke about the national security threat posed by communist-run Cuba. The event was disrupted by Olivia DiNucci, a D.C.-based organizer with CodePink, who unfurled a banner reading «SANCTIONS KILL IN CUBA» before security officials removed her.
Balling described CodePink and similar organizations as «Trojan horses» that «burst in onto the scene, and they're meant to disrupt and destroy from within.» She added that such groups are «really interested in dividing America and, in doing so, weakening it,» by convincing Americans that the country's founding ideals are «lies» and that «our enemies are our victims.»
CodePink, which describes itself as an anti-war group, supports the Communist Party of Cuba and has led caravans to the island nation. Treasury Department officials are investigating whether the group violated laws barring Americans from doing business with the communist regime. Piker, a Twitch streamer, joined a CodePink delegation to Cuba earlier this year, posing in Havana with cofounder Jodie Evans; both have drawn Treasury scrutiny.
The broader financial network examined in reporting centers on Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai. A five-part investigation examined 223 transactions totaling $591 million across five continents between 2017 and 2025, tracing money through multiple layers of organizations into a transnational network estimated at approximately 2,000 organizations. In 2017, Singham married Evans in Jamaica, in a ceremony attended by CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and other pro-communist leaders.
The analysis documented $278 million flowing from Singham into six core nonprofit organizations that promulgate anti-America, pro-China propaganda beginning in 2017: BreakThrough BT Media Inc., CodePink Women for Peace, Justice and Education Fund Inc., People's Forum Inc., People's Support Foundation Ltd. and Tricontinental Ltd. The organizations and their executives have denied any wrongdoing and allege they are the target of anti-communist «witch hunts.» Singham has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Most of the groups fall into what investigators describe as a «red-green alliance» of socialist and communist groups working closely with Islamist groups, such as the anti-Israel organization Students for Justice in Palestine. The hearing is expected to examine whether adversarial governments are influencing American political life through these networks and what Congress can do to counter them.
