CIA Director John Ratcliffe meets with Cuban officials in Havana

BREAKING NEWSMay. 14, 2026, 11:07 PM UTCCubaCubaCIA Director Ratcliffe meets with Cuban officials in HavanaCuba said that it provided information that “made it possible to categorically demonstrate that Cuba does not constitute a threat to U.S. national security.”Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00John Ratcliffe, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in Washington, DC, last month.Daniel Heuer / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleBy Dan De Luce, Abigail Williams, Maya Rosenberg and Phil HelselCIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday, according to a CIA official and a statement from the Cuban government.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Ratcliffe met with Raulito Rodriguez Castro, a government official and the grandson of former president Raúl Castro, Cuba’s minister of interior, and the the head of the Cuban intelligence service, according to the CIA official.The CIA official said that 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 that there was 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 that designation on his first day in office of his second term.The Ratcliffe meeting...