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The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe, arrived this Thursday in Havana leading a U.S. presidential delegation, marking one of the highest level contacts between Washington and the Cuban regime in decades. The flight, identified as SAM554 and coming from Joint Base Andrews, was tracked in real time by specialized accounts even before the regime itself confirmed the visit.
But there was an image that ended up stealing the spotlight on social media: while U.S. officials boarded the plane to leave Cuba, a cow appeared calmly in one of the areas around José Martí International Airport, captured by the cameras of Reuters. The scene, as Cuban as it was surreal, summed up for many the contrast between the visit of the powerful U.S. delegation and the everyday reality of the island.
What was striking about the meeting was not only its high level but also who Ratcliffe met with. Up to now, there has been no report of a meeting with Miguel Díaz-Canel, the designated ruler of the country, but rather with the Minister of the Interior, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, and with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro and known as “El Cangrejo”.
The official statement from the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) seeks to assert control over decision-making. “Following the request made by the U.S. government for a delegation led by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to be received in Havana, the leadership of the Revolution approved this visit and the meeting with their counterpart from the Ministry of the Interior,” stated the official note.
The statement did not go unnoticed: it was Washington that requested the meeting, the so-called "Leadership of the Revolution" that authorized the visit, and the MININT that received the Americans. Díaz-Canel, who had just declared the day before that they were "always willing to engage in dialogue on equal terms," was excluded from the most important political meeting of the week.
For many observers, the absence once again raised the question of who truly holds power in Cuba. While the cameras tracked every movement of the American plane, the Cuban ruler vanished from the center of the scene.
The official recalls what happened in January 2026, when Ratcliffe traveled to Caracas after the capture of Nicolás Maduro and held meetings with Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president of Venezuela. In Havana, the parallel was immediate: the head of U.S. intelligence lands in Cuba, and the regime responds by sending the State Security apparatus, not the country's formal president.
One of the central themes of the meeting was Cuba's status on the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, to which the Trump administration restored the island on January 20, 2025. The PCC emphasized that Cuba “does not harbor, support, finance, or allow terrorist or extremist organizations”, in addition to denying the existence of foreign intelligence bases in the country.
However, this version clashes with reports from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which have identified at least 12 facilities linked to Chinese intelligence on Cuban territory since 2019, including locations in Bejucal, Calabazar, El Salao, and El Wajay.
The visit also comes amid conflicting signals between Washington and Havana. On Tuesday, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Cuba asks for help, and we are going to talk!”. Two days later, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla softened the regime's stance on the U.S. offer of $100 million in humanitarian aid and stated that Cuba is “willing to listen to the details of the offer,” after having referred to the proposal as a “fable” weeks earlier.
On that same Thursday, Marco Rubio intensified his message by stating that “it is impossible to change Cuba's economic direction while the current leaders remain in power”, although he added: “We need to give it a chance.”
Since March, Washington conditioned any significant progress on the departure of Díaz-Canel from power. The symbolism on Thursday was impossible to overlook: the man whose presence represents one of the main obstacles to an agreement was not even at the negotiating table.
And while diplomats, spies, and officials discussed the political future of the island, a cow looked on from the surroundings of the Havana airport as a plane took off. For many Cubans, the image ended up conveying more about Cuba than any official statement.
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