The head of a prominent U.S.-funded nongovernmental organization has recently acknowledged years of involvement in subversive operations in Cuba and Nicaragua, some in defiance of executive policies.
Damon Wilson, president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), confirmed in testimony before Congress last month that his organization has spent years supporting dissidents who are seeking regime change in Cuba and Nicaragua. He acknowledged that NED supported Cuban dissidents when the Obama administration was organizing a rapprochement with Cuba, and he cited numerous operations in support of Nicaraguan dissidents, including a former Nicaraguan presidential candidate.
Although Wilson insisted that NED makes its decisions in consultation with Congress and the White House, he insisted that the organization can operate independently in pursuit of its own goals. Policies such as the Obama administration’s move to normalize relations with Cuba, he explained, would not deter NED from working to change the Cuban government.
“We’re built so that there is no such thing as mission creep from one administration’s priorities to another,” Wilson said.
Background
Since its creation in 1983 at the behest of Ronald Reagan, NED has been a major organizer of U.S. influence operations across the world. Funded by Congress but designed as a nongovernmental organization, it has worked privately to mobilize and empower political allies in other countries, often with the goal of bringing new leaders to power. NED presents its work as a way of spreading freedom and democracy.
Leaders of NED and its core institutes, including the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), have indicated that they pursue regime change by playing the long game. They have openly acknowledged efforts to change governments across the Global South, and they have speculated about bringing down the governments of powerful U.S. rivals, including China and Russia.
“We have to not give up on the possibility for democratic change in China,” Carl Gershman told Congress in 2018, when he was president of NED.
At last month’s congressional hearing, Wilson indicated that NED continues to conduct influence operations across the world, including in China, which he described as NED’s “largest program.” Wilson disclosed that NED has been active in Iran, citing efforts to deploy hundreds of Starlinks across the country, which have been used by opponents of the Iranian government to share information and organize resistance.
“It’s now one of our largest programs globally that involves both direct partners, Iranian groups, as well as our core institutes,” Wilson said.
Wilson delivered his testimony shortly before the United States and Israel directed a major military attack against Iran, all with the goal of regime change.
NED also operates in Latin America. The organization’s three largest programs in the region are in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, all targets of the Trump administration.
Wilson said little about NED’s longstanding involvement in Venezuela, a country where the Trump administration recently directed a military intervention to seize its president, but he indicated that NED remains active in Cuba and Nicaragua, both of which are under threat of U.S. intervention.
Cuba
For decades, NED has played a significant role in Cuba. Much of its work has focused on supporting and empowering opponents of the Cuban government.
The leaders of NED have often presented their goal as bringing democratic change to Cuba, but their priority has been regime change.
Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that NED and its core institutes have funded Cuban dissidents who have been trying to bring down the Cuban government. A 2007 cable, which summarizes the approaches of two prominent U.S.-backed dissidents, is titled “Cuba: Two Paths to Regime Change.”
Cuban dissidents have relied heavily on NED, requiring its support to maintain their operations. As U.S. diplomats in Cuba have acknowledged, Cuban dissidents are not widely known.
“We see very little evidence that the mainline dissident organizations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009.
According to Wilson, NED supported Cuban dissidents even when the Obama administration was trying to implement a major shift in U.S. policy by engaging with the country’s leaders and normalizing relations with the Cuban government.
NED’s status as private organization, Wilson told Congress, “allowed us to maintain our work in supporting Cuban dissidents.” NED’s work continued while the Obama administration “was engaged in talks with the regime in Havana about restoring diplomatic relations, requesting that NED, IRI, and NDI, that our programs cease in Cuba.”
Wilson’s suggestion that NED worked against the policies of the Obama administration caught the attention of Representative Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), who is now pushing for regime change in Cuba. He put special emphasis on Wilson’s point.
“You all did not change your policy…, did you, despite, by the way, the fact that the Obama administration was looking at a totally different strategy,” Díaz-Balart said.
Wilson did not directly answer but indicated that NED continued its longstanding policy of supporting Cuban dissidents, saying that “we have a responsibility to deliver on our congressional mandate” and “we would maintain as a priority our support for the Cuban people.”
Nicaragua
While NED has remained active in Cuba, it has also played a significant role in Nicaragua. One of its main goals has been to empower the political opponents of the Sandinistas, leftist revolutionaries who led the resistance to the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship and rose to power during the 1980s.
NED’s main target has been Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who played a central role in the Sandinista Revolution, served as the country’s president from 1985 to 1990, and returned to power again in 2007. NED has displayed a willingness to work with any of Ortega’s opponents, ranging from former U.S.-backed Contras who attempted to overthrow the Sandinistas during the 1980s to disaffected Sandinistas who have grown alienated by Ortega’s increasingly repressive rule.
Diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that NED and its core institutes have been directly involved in efforts to weaken Ortega. A 2006 cable describes how both IRI and NDI worked to mobilize voters and political candidates against Ortega and the Sandinistas.
Shortly after Ortega’s return to power in 2007, U.S. diplomats in Nicaragua called for more funding for opposition groups, including more money from U.S. Aid and nongovernmental organizations.
“We need to take decisive action and well-funded measures to bolster the elements of Nicaraguan society that can best stop him,” U.S. diplomats reported.
At the hearing last month, Wilson confirmed that NED continues supporting Nicaraguan dissidents. He explained that NED manages a portfolio of civil society and opposition groups that operate inside and outside Nicaragua.
“Our portfolio puts an emphasis on supporting independent media, access to information,” Wilson said. “We have an incredible suite of Nicaraguan journalists with coverage networks inside the country.”
Wilson also noted that NED supports disaffected peasants, particularly those who have protested the construction of an inter-oceanic canal across Nicaragua. He praised the “campesinos from the movement that resisted the Chinese effort to build a canal across their communities.”
Although Wilson repeatedly insisted upon the importance of protecting the identities of NED recipients, he revealed that NED has established a particularly close relationship with Félix Maradiaga, a former presidential candidate who was arrested and imprisoned by the Nicaraguan government for conspiring with NED during the 2021 general election.
“When he thought that regime forces would be coming for him,” Wilson told Congress, “he wrote down on a sheet of paper a phone number and he turned to his wife Berta Valle and he said, ‘If they take me, call this number, call NED. They will know what to do.’”
In 2023, Maradiaga was released from prison and removed to the United States along with over 200 additional political prisoners. NED later named Maradiaga to its Spring 2024 cohort of Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows.
To this day, NED continues supporting Nicaraguan dissidents, many of whom are now operating from Costa Rica, a country with a U.S.-backed right-wing government, where an estimated 200,000 Nicaraguans are seeking asylum.
Wilson acknowledged that he had recently returned from Costa Rica, having met with NED’s Nicaraguan partners, who are operating in areas along the border with Nicaragua. They are in serious danger, he warned, citing assassinations and “a burgeoning proliferation of the reach of Nicaraguan security services into Costa Rica.”
Political Battles in Washington
The U.S. foreign policy establishment remains highly supportive of NED’s work, including its efforts to achieve regime change in Cuba and Nicaragua, but the organization has faced growing scrutiny. Although it has historically faced strong criticism from the left for meddling in other countries, it has recently come under fire from the right, where right-wing organizations and Trump administration are pushing for its elimination.
In 2024, the Heritage Foundation published a report that made a right-wing case against NED. The report claimed that NED included too many Democrats and discriminated against conservatives. It warned that its members have been critical of Trump and the Republican Party, citing board member Jendayi Frazer, who once identified as a Republican but expressed opposition to Trump. “I would rather my country not go down the fascist route,” Frazer said in 2016.
At the start of the second Trump administration, Trump and his ally Elon Musk moved against the organization. After Trump issued an executive order that froze all foreign aid, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency tried to eliminate NED. Musk called the organization “evil.” Although NED filed a successful lawsuit against the government, regaining funding for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25), the Trump administration continues to withhold funding.
“We have not received FY26 yet, but we’re engaged in consultations with the administration,” Wilson said.
At the same time, right-wing members of Congress have been highly critical of NED. Several representatives have complained that NED once funded the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which ranked the websites of several conservative and right-wing media organizations as being among the riskiest online news outlets in the United States. GDI found the highest disinformation risk came from the websites of The New York Post, Reason Magazine, RealClearPolitics, The Daily Wire, TheBlaze, One America News Network, The American Conservative, The Federalist, Newsmax, and The American Spectator.
Representative Mark Alford (R-MO) called NED’s decision to support GDI “a serious lapse in judgment” and demanded an apology.
Right-wing members of Congress have also taken the position that NED has not been effective. A better way of achieving regime change, they have argued, is to use military force, just as the Trump administration has been doing, all in violation of domestic and international law.
Countries such as China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela “have seen little to no progress in democratic reform and have only recently, actually, have been seeing regime change when our military has gotten involved with pressure from the current administration,” Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) said.
Although establishment members of Congress share similar sentiments, they still support NED. Believing that the organization remains critical to U.S. influence operations across the world, including Cuba and Nicaragua, they are doing everything in their power to reassure right-wing critics that it is necessary for NED to continue its work.
“NED is accountable,” Díaz-Balart insisted.
Indeed, establishment leaders are doing everything they can to save an organization that not only meddles in sovereign countries but is willing to go rogue. Rather than condemning the organization for its subversive activities, including its work against the Obama administration in Cuba, they are championing its efforts to exercise U.S. influence across the world and lay foundations for regime change.
“I will tell you,” Díaz-Balart said to Wilson, “that your mission, established by Ronald Reagan, supported by this Congress, continues to be as important now as it ever was.”