CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday, according to a CIA official and a statement from the Cuban government.
Ratcliffe met with Cuba’s interior minister, the head of its intelligence services and Raulito Rodríguez Castro, a government official who is the grandson of former President Raúl Castro, according to the CIA official.
Cuba faces an energy crisis after the U.S. military in January arrested the president of Venezuela, a country that was a key Cuban ally and source of oil.
The CIA official said Ratcliffe was there “to personally deliver President Trump’s message that the United States is prepared to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
The CIA official added that Ratcliffe and the Cuban officials discussed “intelligence cooperation, economic stability and security issues, all against the backdrop that Cuba can no longer be a safe haven for adversaries in the Western Hemisphere.”
Cuba said it provided information that “made it possible to categorically demonstrate that Cuba does not constitute a threat to U.S. national security.”
Cuba also said there were no “legitimate reasons to include it on the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.”
The Biden administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in January 2025, but President Donald Trump reinstated the designation on the first day in office of his second term.
The Trump administration has deployed a full-court press on the Cuban government, but Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the Cuban government’s ability to maintain power, officials told NBC News in a report published Monday.
The Cuban government said in Thursday’s statement that the meetings were held because of a request by the U.S. government.
The State Department said in a statement Wednesday that the U.S. is prepared to give $100 million in “direct assistance to the Cuban people” — which Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, called a first.
But the State Department statement was critical of Cuba’s government and called it a “corrupt regime.”
The State Department said in the statement that it has offered “support for free and fast satellite internet and $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance.”
“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” it added in the statement.
The State Department said the offer of direct humanitarian assistance would be “in coordination with the Catholic Church and other reliable independent humanitarian organizations.”
Rodríguez said Thursday on X that the government was waiting for more details but does not reject foreign aid offered in good faith.
He noted what he called “the incongruity of this apparent generosity from a party that subjects the Cuban people to collective punishment through economic warfare.”
“We are willing to hear the details of the offer and how it would be implemented,” he said. “We hope it will be free of political maneuvering and attempts to exploit the hardships and suffering of a people under siege.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas in an interview Thursday that Cuba’s government has been the problem when it comes to aid.
“It’s Cuba. They are the holdup,” Rubio said.
He said the only strings attached to the money are that it be distributed by nongovernmental organizations.
“This can’t be humanitarian aid that the government steals for itself,” he said.
The U.S. has imposed an embargo and sanctions against Cuba that go back to the Cold War. Although U.S.-Cuba relations were restored in 2015, during the Obama administration, Trump reversed most of those measures in 2017.
In January, the U.S. military carried out a military operation in Venezuela and apprehended President Nicolás Maduro, dealing a major blow to Cuba’s ally.
Venezuela had supplied Cuba with critical oil used to power the country. Cuba’s energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, told state media Wednesday that the island has run out of oil.
