Chinese and Iranian political influence networks are joining forces inside the U.S. to challenge American power and policies, including by appealing to supporters to donate money via sanctioned Iranian banks, Newsweek can reveal.
A Chicago-based member of an organization headquartered in Tehran that was founded two decades ago to deepen ties between Iran and Latin America confirmed to Newsweek that his organization is collaborating with a leading U.S.-based tax-exempt group that has extensive organizational and financial ties to China.
The Tehran organization, the House of Latin America (HOLA), is a regional partner of the U.S.-registered nonprofit, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, whose advisory board chairman and funder is the U.S. millionaire Neville Roy Singham who lives in Shanghai.
In 2025, Tricontinental’s Persian-language Telegram channel posted appeals for donations and the proceeds of book sales to go to two accounts in the name of Ali Abutalebi, HOLA’s Chicago-based director of publications, at the Bank Melli Iran. The bank is widely sanctioned, including by the U.S. Treasury’s OFAC, for services to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and for moving money into and out of Iran including for the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, according to the Open Sanctions database.
In February 2026, HOLA issued an appeal for donations for Cuba, also on a Tricontinental Telegram channel, to be sent to another Iranian bank, the Refah Kargaran Bank. This bank is also sanctioned for ties to Iran’s defense establishment and for weapons procurement, according to Open Sanctions.
The collaboration between HOLA and Tricontinental effectively marries Iran and China’s most influential nonprofit "anti-imperialist" organizations within the Americas.
It also raises questions about potential foreign state backing, since HOLA's founding document says that it works with the Iranian government.
A congressional committee has subpoenaed Tricontinental and is investigating its China ties, alleging that as a nonprofit it was using America's tax code to undermine the U.S.
“Foreign adversaries must not be allowed to use America’s tax code to undermine our country from within," GOP Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told Newsweek in a statement. "[T]ax-exempt organizations are being used to funnel money and advance the interests of foreign powers. No matter where the money comes from or which foreign agenda it serves, abusing America’s tax-exempt sector to advance the interests of foreign adversaries is unacceptable."
The Missouri congressman added: "We will follow the money wherever it leads, expose these networks, and hold those who abuse our tax laws accountable."
This specific China-Iran tie-up, reported here for the first time, adds a new and potentially significant piece to a mosaic of groups in the U.S. and internationally that align with the interests of China and other U.S. adversaries as they engage in increasingly sharp geopolitical competition. It was uncovered by the Network Contagion Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. Newsweek confirmed the details, and contacted the organizations involved for comment.
Newsweek has previously reported on similar, overlapping networks, and also on close ties between the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and China.
A 'Red-Green Alliance'
The collaboration is an example of a growing phenomenon: the “Red-Green Alliance” or tactical groupings of radical leftists (red, for communism or socialism) and Islamists (green, for Islam) that often cohere around the issues of Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and opposition to Israel and to U.S. policies in the Middle East.
The DSA is connected to key players in this specific “red-green” alliance—Abutalebi and Tricontinental’s Executive Director Vijay Prashad—through a prominent member of its International Committee, Anlin Wang, who organizes the DSA’s China Working Group.
Wang, Abutalebi and Prashad are members of a collective called "No Cold War" that says it is “an international platform committed to resisting the escalation of a new U.S.-driven cold or hot war against China or any other sovereign nation.”
"No Cold War" in turn has financial and membership overlap with the prominent U.S. far-left organization CodePink whose co-founder, Jodie Evans, is married to Singham.
Singham has distributed millions to leftist organizations including Tricontinental, according to tax filings. CodePink’s other founder, Medea Benjamin, is the president of Arc of Justice, a multimillion-dollar fund for far-left activism in the U.S., and also a signatory of the "No Cold War" platform.
Wang and the DSA, and Tricontinental, did not reply to requests for comment. After initially confirming the collaboration via email, Abutalebi requested more questions in writing saying he would refer them to his “collective leadership,” but did not revert.
Abutalebi was born in Iran and has lived in the U.S. since 2017, according to an online biography.
“Red-Green” alliances are mostly transactional in nature, but they can prove effective when they join on specific issues such as Cuba or Palestine, a professor of security studies told Newsweek.
“The Red-Green Alliance is not a single organisation with a central leadership, treasury, or command structure. It is more accurate to describe it as a network of tactical collaborations without a central leader or funder,” Emmanuel Karagiannis, Professor of International Security at the Department of Defence Studies, King's College London, told Newsweek in an email.
“Leftists advocate secularism, class and gender politics, and progressive social values, whereas Islamists emphasise religion, communal identity, and social conservatism. What brings them together is not ideological affinity but shared opposition to perceived Western hegemony, neoliberal capitalism, and social injustice,” Karagiannis said.
"In the USA, the alliance has been rather effective at disseminating narratives and mobilising supporters around Palestine and opposition to the US foreign policy in the Middle East. There is also some evidence that the alliance has been successful in building electoral coalitions in certain states," he said.
Deepening Networks
The network deepened on December 21, 2023, when HOLA became a “regional partner” of Tricontinental, according to a Persian-language post on a Telegram channel that bears the Tricontinental logo. The following year Abutalebi confirmed the partnership on X and said that he led it. The 2023 post reads:
“Starting today, Thursday, December 21, 2023 (Azar 30, 1402), Latin America House begins its collaboration with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research as a regional partner,” using another English name for HOLA.
“This collaboration is undertaken within the framework of our shared objectives: Building a bridge between political and social activists from diverse traditions to promote critical thinking, and the production and dissemination of analytical and research content that serves the emancipatory aspirations of the peoples of the Global South. Join us and support us along this path.”
The organizations collaborate widely on publications, among other things.
Abutalebi is also listed as the Chicago contact person for a pro-Iranian event, Al Quds Day, which took place on March 13 this year at multiple locations around the country including in New York. Established in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the day opposes Zionism and Israel’s control over Jerusalem.
Abutalebi is not the only key figure on the Iranian side: the account name and number in the appeal for donations for Cuba belongs to Abdolhamid Shahrabi, who founded HOLA nearly 20 years ago and is Abutalebi’s Tehran-based colleague.
Shahrabi has long been networked in Latin America particularly in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia, with social media posts and online reports showing him with politicians in those countries and in Iran.
The Telegram post offered an alternative donation channel, Let Cuba Live, with checks payable to The People’s Forum at a New York address. The People’s Forum, like Tricontinental, is funded by Singham and is facing a congressional subpoena.
Connecting China, Iran and Latin America
Via Shahrabi, the China-Iran nexus has ties to the Basij movement, a paramilitary organization in Iran and a sub-branch of the IRGC, according to posts on Shahrabi’s Telegram channel that show him lecturing a group of what appears to be university students in front of an image of a machine gun on a classroom board. Among the national flags on the wall is that of the People’s Republic of China.
HOLA, which was founded during the administration of Iranian former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says it is a non-governmental organization.
Yet according to a document in Persian that has been deleted from the Internet but was seen by Newsweek, HOLA “works closely with Iranian governmental and non-governmental bodies to perform joint activities and build support for cooperation with Latin American countries, including the Presidential Office, Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” and other departments.
Ahmadinejad undertook a strategic pivot toward Latin America to counter Iran's deepening international isolation that was led by the U.S. in response to the 1979 Islamic revolution when relations ruptured and Iran designated the U.S. "the Great Satan."
Abutalebi is a former member of Ahmedinejad’s media team, according to another Persian-language report that listed him among a group of “media activists” who were “responsible for policy-making, planning, and monitoring the personal website of our former president.” Social media posts show Ahmedinejad and Abutalebi in close proximity in Iran, including on stage.
In addition to collaborating on publications and running joint Telegram channels, Tricontinental’s Prashad has appeared alongside Abutalebi at a webinar in Tehran, in 2023.
Spreading Information Wars
A senior White House national security source told Newsweek that the Iran-China linkage was an example of a spreading information war that was gaining traction in real life but also via online bots, increasingly amplified by agentic AI, that was orchestrated by the CCP and others including Iran and Russia to weaken the U.S., where free speech protections make such activities difficult to counter.
The tie-up between the Iranian group and Singham’s Shanghai network was not a coincidence, the person said, speaking with anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“The CCP has enabled the Singham network, writ large,” to facilitate groups including HOLA, but the networks were far bigger than any single collaboration, the person said.
And while Singham was an important figure, he was not the only one: “He’s one of the loudest ones but he’s one of many," the person said. About Ali Abutalebi, “This person is one of many gears in that machine.”