Around 4:30 p.m. on May 14, 2026, the Havana regime publicly announced that a US delegation led by CIA Director John Ratcliffe had landed in Havana earlier that day. According to official sources, the delegation met with senior officials from the Ministry of the Interior, though, as usual, no details of the conversation were disclosed.
Hours later, Fox News published details of the meeting provided by a CIA official. Among the Cuban bureaucrats who met with Ratcliffe was Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, a key figure in the negotiations acting as spokesperson for his grandfather, the 94-year-old Raul Castro. Also present were Interior Minister Lazaro Alvarez Casas and the head of the island’s intelligence services. The CIA later released photographs of the meeting on its X account.
John Ratcliffe personally carried a message from President Donald Trump: “The United States is prepared to seriously address economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”
Fox reported that the meeting covered issues of economic stability, security concerns, and intelligence cooperation, especially given the Trump administration’s insistence that Cuba cannot continue sheltering adversaries of the Western Hemisphere. The Cuban regime has consistently denied such accusations and rejects its inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
According to sources consulted by the network, the United States “is offering a genuine opportunity for collaboration” to the island, and Ratcliffe stated in Havana that Donald Trump should be taken seriously, especially considering the Venezuelan precedent.
X / CIA.
The window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely, the sources quoted by Fox emphasized. They added that it is up to the Cuban government to decide whether to seize the moment or continue perpetuating “an unsustainable path that only leads to greater isolation and instability.”
Ratcliffe reiterated to Cuban officials that Trump prefers dialogue, but Fox’s sources insist that the island should not assume the US president will fail to enforce his “red lines.”
Earlier today, both Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and President Miguel Díaz-Canel tweeted that Cuba would be willing to discuss the 100 million dollars in humanitarian aid offered by the United States, though they attached conditions. Nevertheless, Havana’s narrative that regime change is not on the negotiating table has been constant, as has the claim that the Cuban people would be willing to die defending the Revolution. Cuban leaders have spoken of “bloodbaths.”
In Havana especially, for several days people have been protesting the unbearable living conditions. Yesterday, the Minister of Energy and Mines announced that the island had zero petroleum, zero fuel oil — “we have nothing.”
X / CIA.
The flight bringing the CIA director was the second flight carrying Trump administration personnel to land on Cuban soil amid recent tensions between the two countries. The first traveled to the island on April 10, 2026, though it was not until April 20 that the Havana regime publicly acknowledged the meeting had taken place. Earlier today, before the regime’s statement announcing the CIA director’s presence in Cuba, several media outlets had reported that a US Air Force plane had landed at Jose Martí International Airport.
This article was translated into English from the original in Spanish.
