Follow The Money: Florida Subpoenas DSA Over Cuban, Chinese Cash Days After Socialist Election Sweep

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Tuesday issued an investigative subpoena to the Democratic Socialists of America, saying his office is examining whether DSA accepted contributions or support “from foreign sources of concern, including the regimes in Cuba and China,” and whether its fundraising from Florida donors has been “fully transparent and lawful.”

In a video announcing the probe, Uthmeier said the subpoena was issued under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the state’s laws on the solicitation of funds. It covers “recent DSA delegations to Cuba, where national leaders and national political committee members met with Cuban government officials, as well as a delegation to China,” he said, along with travel fund solicitations that “sought tens of thousands of dollars to cover costs for those trips and related activities involving Florida chapters.”

Today my office issued a subpoena to the Democratic Socialists of America. We’re examining foreign contributions – including from Cuba and China – tied to their delegations and travel fund solicitations.

FL law requires transparency. We will hold those who break the law accountable. pic.twitter.com/Xu8MUoDwZb

— Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) November 10, 2026

Uthmeier’s office has not alleged that DSA actually took foreign money, and he said the subpoena “seeks the documents needed to determine compliance.” The law he is leaning on is SB 700, signed in May 2025, which bars charities and fundraisers soliciting in Florida from accepting contributions from people tied to “foreign countries of concern,” a list that includes Cuba and China. Knowing and willful violations carry criminal penalties, according to a Holland & Knight summary of the law. “We will not allow foreign adversaries to influence Florida through the back door of nonprofit fundraising,” Uthmeier said.

A national DSA spokesperson told the Florida Phoenix that the group is “aware of the situation” and has “no comment at this time.”

The subpoena landed a week after DSA-backed Democrat Ashley Herrmann ousted Republican incumbent Danny Alvarez in state House District 69 in Hillsborough County, which Creative Loafing called the first Democratic Socialist elected in Florida. 

Nationally, as we reported last week, DSA members now run America’s two largest cities with Nithya Raman’s declared the winner in Los Angeless. Uthmeier won his own race last week by less than 2 points.

DSA’s Metro DC chapter wrote that “forty DSA members from across the country” traveled to Cuba in October 2025 to deliver aid, visit hospitals and schools, and “learn directly from Cuban workers, students, and officials,” and its December reportback featured the Embassy of Cuba. The group pays for “DSA delegations abroad” through its Venceremos Fund, whose donation page says contributions “are not tax-deductible.”

DSA members also joined the “Nuestra America” convoy to Cuba in March alongside Code Pink and Progressive International. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has already sent administrative subpoenas over that trip to streamer Hasan Piker and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, seeking financial, logistical and communications records, Fox News reported in May.

Florida is not the first to look at those ties. As we reported in June, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), Amistur Cuba and three other entities, calling ICAP a central node in a Cuban intelligence and influence network. Amistur is the Cuban agency that books political tours of the island.

On China, DSA meeting minutes reviewed by Newsweek, as we noted, recorded a New York activist telling the group’s China Working Group in October 2025 that “China wants to interface with the DSA,” and Chinese officials encouraging members to set up exchanges. Separately, the House Ways and Means Committee has subpoenaed three far-left groups that took more than $39 million tied to China-based financier Neville Roy Singham; DSA was not among them.

DSA’s young backers, as we noted earlier this month, may not fully understand what it stands for, and its own records on who paid for the trips to Cuba and China now go to a Republican attorney general.