CIA Director Ratcliffe Visits Havana in Rare High-Level US–Cuba Contact

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana on May 14–15, 2026, meeting with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro ('Raulito', Raúl Castro's grandson and a senior Cuban intelligence official), Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, and the head of Cuban intelligence. The visit was the first by a sitting CIA director to Cuba in decades. It was preceded by a secret February 2026 meeting between Rodríguez Castro and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in St. Kitts. Ratcliffe delivered Trump's message that the US would 'seriously engage' on economic and security matters only if Cuba made 'fundamental changes' — including releasing political prisoners, ending support for adversary nations, and providing transparency on biological weapons research. Cuba objected to remaining on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and argued it posed no national security threat to the US. The Havana visit represented the highest-level US intelligence contact with Cuba since the failed 2015–2017 Obama normalization era, taking place as the island's fuel reserves reached zero and daily blackouts exceeded 20 hours — conditions that gave the US maximum coercive leverage over the negotiations.