CIA Director John Ratcliffe meets with Cuban officials in Havana

By Patrick Oppmann, Hira Humayun, Michael Rios, CNN

Havana, Cuba (CNN) — CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a US delegation to Havana to meet with Cuban government officials on Thursday as the island grapples with a collapse of its energy sector amid spiraling relations with the US.

“Following the request submitted by the US government that a delegation presided over by the CIA Director John Ratcliffe be received in Havana, the Revolutionary Directorate approved the realization of this visit and the meeting with its counterpart from the Ministry of the Interior,” read a statement from the Cuban government.

The meeting with the head of the CIA, the same agency Cuba has long accused of sabotaging its revolution, comes as tensions between the Cold War-era foes have risen to the highest point in decades.

Havana said its officials stressed in the meeting that Cuba “does not constitute a threat to the national security of the US” and that there are no “legitimate reasons” to include it on the US’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, as it has been under the Trump administration. They also insisted the country does not harbor, support or fund terrorists – something the US has long accused it of doing – and denied hosting foreign military or intelligence bases.

Two sources familiar with the meeting confirmed to CNN that the CIA director made the trip. The CIA later posted photos of Ratcliffe meeting with Cuban officials on X.

News of the meeting comes just two days after US President Donald Trump suggested his administration was preparing to talk with Cuba, claiming the island was a “failed country” asking for help amid a deepening economic crisis.

“Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!! In the meantime, I’m off to China!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The president’s comments come after his administration recently intensified sanctions against Cuba and months after it effectively imposed an oil blockade on the country. They also come after the US military ramped up intelligence-gathering flights off the coast of Cuba.

Other than one shipload of donated Russian oil, Cuban officials say they have been cut off by the US from any oil shipments for more than four months.

The Russian donation in late March has been exhausted and oil reserves that run the island’s beleaguered electrical grid are all but spent, Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy said in a televised appearance Wednesday night.

The minister’s comments came just hours after the State Department said the US was offering the island $100 million in aid, to carry out “meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system.”

The following day, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel suggested on X that Cuba would be open to receiving aid from the US, but that “lifting or easing the blockade” would be preferred.

“If there is truly a willingness on the part of the United States government to provide aid … it will encounter no obstacles or ingratitude from Cuba,” the president posted to X.

“Incidentally, the damage could be alleviated in a much easier and more expeditious way by lifting or easing the blockade, as it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced.”

As part of the aid package, the US has offered the donation of Starlink terminals that would expand connectivity on the island but also break the Cuban government’s monopoly on the internet.

Last month, a senior US delegation met with Cuban government officials in Cuba as the Trump administration ramped up its efforts to pressure Havana into a deal.

The senior State Department delegation stressed that time was running out for Havana “to make key US-backed reforms before circumstances irreversibly worsen,” a US State Department official told CNN.

The US delegation stressed “Cuba’s need to make significant economic and governance reforms to enhance competitiveness, attract foreign investment, and allow private sector-led growth,” according to the official.

The delegation also demanded that the Cuban government release political prisoners and increase “political freedoms,” the official said, and expressed concerns “about foreign intelligence, military, and terror groups operating with Cuban governmental permission less than 100 miles from the American homeland.”

It was the first time a US government aircraft had touched down in Cuba – other than at the US base in Guantanamo Bay – since 2016, when former President Barack Obama visited amid an effort to expand relations with Havana.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.