The director of the US foreign secret service CIA, John Ratcliffe, met with representatives of the socialist Caribbean state in Cuba.
May 15, 2026, 07:23May 15, 2026, 07:23
The meeting with senior Interior Ministry officials took place at the request of the US government, the Cuban government said.
CIA chief John Ratcliffe.Image: keystone
Several US media outlets, citing a CIA official, unanimously reported that Ratcliffe had met, among others, Cuba’s Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, a grandson of the Cuban revolutionary leader Raúl Castro.
The news portal “Axios” and the broadcaster NBC News quoted a CIA official as saying that Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba to convey US President Donald Trump’s message “that the United States is ready to seriously address economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
The Cuban government said that the visit was aimed at promoting political dialogue between the two countries against the background of “complex” bilateral relations. At the meeting with Ratcliffe and the US delegation, Cuba’s representatives were able to clearly demonstrate that the island posed “no threat to US national security,” the government in Havana said. There is no reason to keep the country on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism subject to sanctions. Cuba does not finance or tolerate terrorist organizations and has “never supported hostile activities against the United States.”
Government critic goes into exile
Relations between the two countries have been tense since the revolution in 1959, and with the recent change of government in Washington they have become even more tense. As one of his first official acts after moving back into the White House, Trump put the island state ruled by the Communist Party back on the US terror list in January 2025. He increased the pressure to force economic and political change in Cuba in the interests of the USA. In recent months, the two governments say they have held talks, the content of which is not known.
At the same time as the CIA delegation’s visit, the US State Department announced that 27-year-old Cuban government critic Sissi Abascal Zamora and her family had gone into exile in the USA. Abascal was released from custody on Thursday (local time). She was sentenced to six years in prison after the large protests against the government on July 11, 2021. (sda/dpa)