Florida’s attorney general has issued an investigative subpoena to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to determine whether the group accepted money or other support from the Chinese and Cuban governments.
Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the move in a video posted on social media on Tuesday, saying his office wanted to establish whether the organisation “accepted contributions or support from foreign sources of concern, including the regimes in Cuba and China”, and whether its fundraising among donors in the US state had been transparent and lawful.
“Our laws prohibit accepting contributions from foreign sources of concern,” Uthmeier said.
“They require organisations to be honest and transparent about how money is raised and used. The subpoena seeks the documents needed to determine compliance.”
The subpoena covers DSA delegations to Cuba, where national leaders and members of the group’s political committee met government officials, and a delegation to China.
It also covers travel fund campaigns that sought tens of thousands of dollars for those trips and for the work of the group’s Florida chapters. In January, the DSA launched its Venceremos Fund to help members pay for trips the group organised.
Uthmeier stops short of filing charges against DSA
Uthmeier has not filed any charges or said how much money, if any, the group received from Beijing or Havana.
His office invoked a consumer protection law that lets it examine whether donors were misled about how their money is used, along with state rules on charitable solicitation.
Since last year, a statute known as SB 700 has barred non-profits that raise money in Florida from accepting donations linked to China, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Syria and the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, who was captured by US forces in January but remains named in the law.
The case adds to a wider US push against what critics call Chinese influence exercised through non-profits.
In December, 26 Republican state attorneys general, including Florida’s, asked the US Justice Department to investigate two climate groups as unregistered agents of China.
Considered the largest socialist organisation in the US, with more than 100,000 members, the DSA is not a party but backs candidates who run as Democrats, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The subpoena came a week after Ashley Herrmann, a Democrat backed by the DSA, defeated a Republican incumbent to become the group’s first member elected to the Florida legislature.
The DSA’s own publications describe a self-organised, five-member delegation, including Anlin Wang, who coordinates the DSA’s China Working Group and went to Beijing in September 2025 for a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin.
Group’s connections to Beijing draw scrutiny from US
The group’s links to Beijing also drew scrutiny earlier this year. Newsweek reported on minutes of a DSA China Working Group meeting in which an activist described Chinese interest in closer ties with the organisation.
The New York Post also found 11 DSA members among signatories of a pledge to “support, defend and build understanding of Chinese socialism”.
The DSA sent a 40-member delegation to Cuba in October 2025 and, in March, 20 of its members joined the Nuestra America convoy, which brought medical supplies and solar panels to the island. Cuba has been hit by a severe fuel crisis after Washington moved to block oil shipments in early January.
The group organised the convoy together with the anti-war group CodePink and the Progressive International, a coalition of left-wing parties and movements.
The US embargo restricts travel to Cuba by Americans and is enforced by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
In May, the conservative outlet Fox News Digital reported that the office sent requests for records to people who took part in the convoy, including left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin.
Benjamin later confirmed that her group had received a records request, but Piker said he had not. The US Treasury Department has not publicly confirmed the inquiry.
A DSA spokesperson told Newsweek the group was aware of the subpoena but declined to comment further, and neither Beijing nor Havana has publicly addressed the investigation.
The South China Morning Post contacted the Florida attorney general’s office, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the DSA and the Cuban embassies in Washington, but they did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the SCMP that, while not privy to the specifics of the subpoena in Florida, Beijing “opposes politicising such exchanges”.
“China has consistently upheld the principle of non-interference. Normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States are open, transparent, lawful and legitimate,” the embassy said.
Under Florida law, the attorney general’s office can demand documents and sworn testimony before deciding whether to bring a case.
Neither the office nor the DSA has disclosed the deadline for handing over records, and the full text of the subpoena has not been made public. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
