CIA Director Visits Cuba As Energy Crisis Deepens

Photos posted by the agency on X showed Ratcliffe alongside several people with blurred-out faces.

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.