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The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, traveled to Havana this Thursday and met with senior officials of the Cuban regime to personally deliver a message from President Donald Trump: The United States is willing to engage in dialogue, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes, according to Fox News.
According to a CIA official cited by the television network, Ratcliffe met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro (known as El Cangrejo) and Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas.
The main message was that Washington is ready to "seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes."
During the meeting, topics of intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security were discussed, all under the premise that Cuba cannot continue to be a haven for adversaries of the United States in the Western Hemisphere.
CIA sources warned that Ratcliffe emphasized Venezuela as a sign that Trump should be taken seriously: "As demonstrated with Venezuela, President Donald Trump must be taken seriously."
The Cuban government itself confirmed the visit through an official statement published on the Communist Party's website, in which it stated that it was Washington who requested the meeting and that "the Leadership of the Revolution approved the holding of this visit."
In that same statement, the Cuban delegation affirmed that it had presented evidence to "categorically demonstrate that Cuba is not a threat to the national security of the U.S." and argued that the island should not be included on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, which Trump reinserted it on January 20, 2025, hours after taking office for his second term.
A VIP aircraft of the U.S. Air Force, arriving from Joint Base Andrews, landed in Havana for the mission — the second known official flight from the U.S. on Cuban soil since 2016.
The visit comes amid a week of contradictory signals from the regime.
Last Tuesday, Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that they are "always ready for dialogue," while Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, who had previously referred to the offer of 100 million dollars in humanitarian aid revealed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a "fable," announced a willingness to "listen to the details" of that proposal.
The economic backdrop creates maximum pressure. The CEPAL projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP of 6.5% for 2026, the worst in Latin America, while economist Pedro Monreal warns that the decline could reach 15%, matching the worst year of the Special Period in 1993. The loss of between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil per day, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, has led to power outages of up to 20-25 hours daily across the island.
Ratcliffe had already employed this model of direct intelligence diplomacy in January 2026, when he traveled to Caracas to meet with Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president of Venezuela, on a mission ordered directly by Trump.
CIA sources were explicit about the limits of the opening: "dialogue presents Cuba with an exceptional opportunity to stabilize its bankrupt economy and address the needs of its people, but the window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely." They added that "the Cuban government must decide whether to seize the moment or continue down an unsustainable path that only leads to further isolation and instability."
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