CIA chief visits Cuba as island says it has run out of oil

HAVANA: CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Cuba on Thursday in a rare high-level contact between Washington and Havana as the island faces a worsening energy crisis and says it has exhausted its oil supplies.

The Central Intelligence Agency confirmed the visit after the Cuban government announced it. Images shared by the agency on X showed Ratcliffe meeting Ramon Romero Curbelo, the head of intelligence at Cuba's Interior Ministry, along with other Cuban officials whose faces were obscured in the photographs.

The visit came at a time of mounting strain in US-Cuba ties, with Cuba grappling with repeated electricity outages driven by President Donald Trump's fuel blockade. Cuba's Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told state television that the only tanker to arrive from Russia, a longstanding ally of Havana, had already been depleted.

The impact of the blockade is indeed causing us significant harm.because we are still not receiving fuel.

Cuba said the meeting with Ratcliffe was intended to help lower tensions. In an official statement, the government said the talks took place in a setting shaped by the difficult state of bilateral relations and were aimed at contributing to political dialogue between the two countries.

in a context marked by the complexity of bilateral relations, with the aim of contributing to the political dialogue between both nations

The Cuban statement said the exchanges showed that Cuba does not threaten US national security and that there were no valid grounds to keep it on the US list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.

made it possible to demonstrate categorically that Cuba does not constitute a threat to US national security, nor are there any legitimate reasons to include it on the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism

The statement also rejected accusations linked to an alleged Chinese presence and said Cuba had not backed hostile acts against the United States and would not allow actions against any other country to be launched from Cuban territory.

has never supported any hostile activity against the United States, nor will it permit actions against any other nation to be carried out from Cuba

Fuel pressure and US position

One of Cuba's remaining economic lifelines was cut in January when US forces toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and imposed a fuel blockade. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has renewed an offer of $100 million in aid, provided the assistance is distributed through the Catholic Church rather than the Cuban government.

In an interview with NBC News aired on Thursday, Rubio said Cuba was responsible for the hardship facing the island.

The Cuban people should know there's $100 million of food and medicine available for them right now.

It's in our national interest to have a prosperous Cuba, not to have a failed state 90 miles from our shores

In a post on X, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called on Washington to remove the blockade instead.

The damage could be eased in a much simpler and faster way by lifting or relaxing the blockade, since it is known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced

Despite the tensions, official contacts have continued. A high-level diplomatic meeting was held in Havana on April 10, marking the first time since 2016 that a US government plane landed in the Cuban capital.

CBS News cited unidentified US officials saying the Trump administration is also seeking to indict Raul Castro, the 94-year-old brother of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Blackouts and protests

Eastern Cuba was hit by another nationwide outage on Thursday, although electricity was later restored in some areas. The power crisis has also triggered protests.

A resident of San Miguel del Padron, on the outskirts of Havana, told AFP that people protested on Wednesday night by banging pots and pans. AFP also gathered accounts of several other small demonstrations in neighbourhoods across the capital.

Turn on the lights!

That slogan was shouted by residents in Playa, in western Havana. Data compiled by AFP showed lengthy blackouts and record shortfalls in power generation in recent days. On Tuesday, 65 percent of Cuban territory experienced simultaneous blackouts.

Rubio, speaking to Fox News, said Cuba's economy was broken and could not be changed under the current leadership.

It's a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it's impossible to change it. I wish it were different.

I don't think we're going to be able to change the trajectory of Cuba as long as these people are in charge.

Trump has repeatedly signalled that he wants to topple Cuba's communist government.