CIA director visits Cuba as communist island runs out of oil

Island endures constant power outages due to President Donald Trump fuel blockade

The head of the CIA visited Cuba on Thursday, an extraordinary step-up in contact between Washington and Havana as the communist-run island reels from US pressure, declaring that it is out of oil.

The Central Intelligence Agency, at the heart of the decades-long struggle between the United States and Cuba, confirmed a Cuban government statement about Director John Ratcliffe's visit.

Photos posted by the agency on X showed Ratcliffe alongside several people with blurred-out faces meeting with Ramon Romero Curbelo, chief of the intelligence of the Cuban Interior Ministry, and other Cuban officials.

The visit comes during a deepening crisis in US-Cuba relations, with the island enduring constant power outages prompted by President Donald Trump's fuel blockade.

Only one tanker from Russia, a historic ally of the Cuban authorities, has got through.

And that oil has now "run out," Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy told state television. "The impact of the blockade is indeed causing us significant harm...because we are still not receiving fuel."

Trump has repeatedly signalled that he wants to topple the communist government in Cuba. According to a report on CBS News, citing unidentified US officials, the Trump administration is also seeking to indict Raul Castro, the 94-year-old brother of the late Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro.

But Cuba framed the Ratcliffe visit as a chance to calm tensions.

The meeting with Ratcliffe took place "in a context marked by the complexity of bilateral relations, with the aim of contributing to the political dialogue between both nations," a government statement read.

The exchanges "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 Cuban statement added.

Read: Cuba blasts 'dangerous' US threats of military action against island

Cuba "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," it emphasized, referring to allegations of a Chinese presence.

Blockade

One of Cuba's last economic lifelines was cut in January when US forces toppled the strongman leader of oil-rich Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, and instituted a fuel blockade.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has renewed an offer of $100 million in aid on the condition that the assistance be distributed by the Catholic Church, bypassing the government.

In an interview with NBC News that aired Thursday, Rubio blamed Cuba for the island's current suffering. "The Cuban people should know there's $100 million of food and medicine available for them right now," Rubio said. "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 urged the United States to instead lift its blockade. "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," he said.

Despite tensions, intergovernmental talks are ongoing, with a high-level diplomatic meeting taking place in Havana on April 10 -- the first time a US government plane landed in the Cuban capital since 2016.

'Turn on the lights!'

Eastern Cuba was plunged into the latest outage affecting the whole country on Thursday, with power returning to some areas later in the day.

The crisis prompted protests on the island.

A resident of San Miguel del Padron, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, told AFP that people had protested by banging pots and pans on Wednesday evening.

Read More: Trump says US will take over Cuba 'almost immediately'

Several other similar small demonstrations were held in neighborhoods across the capital, according to accounts gathered by AFP.

"Turn on the lights!" shouted residents in Playa, in the western part of the city.

Data compiled by AFP showed prolonged blackouts and record generation shortfalls in recent days. Some 65 percent of Cuban territory endured simultaneous blackouts on Tuesday.

"It's a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it's impossible to change it. I wish it were different," Rubio told Fox News.

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