CIA director's visit to Havana fuels questions over Cuba's future
by Macarena Hermosilla & Mar Puig · UPIMay 15 (UPI) -- CIA Director John Ratcliffe's visit to Havana this week opened a new political chapter inside and outside Cuba, with analysts and opposition figures interpreting the meeting as a sign of direct pressure from Washington on a regime battered by massive blackouts, fuel shortages and an increasingly deep economic crisis.
The trip marked an unusual development in bilateral relations. The Cuban government confirmed that a U.S. delegation led by Ratcliffe met with his counterpart Thursday at Cuba's Interior Ministry.
Washington had requested the meeting, which was approved by "the leadership of the Revolution," according to the state-run newspaper Granma.
The CIA released photos of the meeting -- "the most significant milestone so far in the two months of opaque negotiations taking place between Washington and Havana," Spanish newspaper El País reported.
In another twist, according to reports by CBS News, USA Today and NBC News, a U.S. Justice Department official said the United States is considering formally charging former Cuban President Raul Castro over a 30-year-old incident in which the Cuban government shot down two aircraft operated by Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
The Ratcliffe visit, which lasted a brief time, was not announced in advance. He him Air Force plane flew from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and returned hours later.
For decades, the Cuban government systematically accused opposition figures, independent journalists and dissidents of acting as agents or collaborators of the CIA. However, it was the regime itself that officially announced the meeting with agency director.
"The Cuban government announced the CIA visit first. For Cubans, that means important things are happening or about to happen," Sebastián Arcos, acting director of the Institute for Cuban Studies, told UPI.
"This increases expectations and anxiety inside and outside the island."
Energy has become the central focus of Cuba's crisis. Ratcliffe arrived on the island precisely as Cuba declared a total energy collapse, formally running out of diesel fuel because of the U.S. naval blockade, while multiple technical failures at thermoelectric plants have left millions of people without electricity for up to 22 hours a day.
According to posts shared by activists and users on Facebook, protests have spread across the Cuban capital for four consecutive nights, while reports of internet outages in areas where gatherings have taken place have increased, Diario de Cuba reported.
Professor Jorge Piñón, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Energy Program at the University of Texas' Energy Institute, said the visit by the CIA chief to Cuban territory "puts on the table what the rules of the game are from the point of view of the United States," amid a crisis he described as "hour zero" for Cuba's energy system.
Piñón told UPI that Cuba has practically exhausted its fuel reserves at storage facilities, ports and refineries, while thermoelectric plants operate on the verge of technical collapse.
The consequences extend far beyond the lack of electricity.
Piñón warned that the crisis affects ground transportation, water and food distribution, agriculture and even humanitarian operations by religious organizations that lack diesel to transport aid.
The deterioration of the electrical system also stems from structural problems accumulated over decades. Cuba depends on thermoelectric plants more than 40 years old, many adapted to burn extra-heavy domestically produced oil with high levels of sulfur and contaminating metals.
According to Piñón, that fuel accelerates the deterioration of already obsolete equipment, generating a "vicious cycle" of temporary repairs and new breakdowns.
He said the island produces about 40,000 barrels a day of heavy crude, but needs about 100,000 barrels a day to cover its energy demand, leaving a critical deficit of refined fuels mainly intended for transportation.
At the same time, Professor Raúl Rodríguez, director of the Center for Hemispheric and United States Studies at the University of Havana, described a society marked by daily exhaustion, uncertainty and the progressive deterioration of living conditions.
He told UPI that prolonged blackouts affect food preservation, access to drinking water and hospital operations.
The crisis also has deep economic consequences. Tourism, one of Cuba's main sources of foreign currency, operates at less than 50% of capacity, affecting employment and the flow of resources into the country.
Rodríguez estimated that about 300,000 workers linked to the tourism sector face direct impacts from the economic slowdown.
Additional problems include health and environmental issues stemming from the lack of fuel for fumigation, garbage collection and basic urban services. The academic warned of growing risks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.
Despite intensifying social unrest, the experts agreed that the crisis will not necessarily lead to an immediate political change.
Rodríguez argued that protests over blackouts and shortages "do not constitute, by themselves, a trigger capable of provoking regime change," due to the absence of an organized political alternative with social legitimacy.
Piñón, meanwhile, said that although signs of social exhaustion exist, the country currently lacks leadership capable of channeling a political transition or with enough authority to organize a possible post-crisis scenario.
According to press reports, the U.S. demands delivered directly by the CIA director focus on an ultimatum conditioned on deep and immediate structural changes.
Washington is demanding that the Cuban government carry out political reforms toward democratization, release all political prisoners and fully open the economy to the private sector.
"From the information that has emerged, the CIA director traveled to Cuba to deliver an ultimatum: either you move, or the United States will," the Institute for Cuban Studies' Arcos said.
The reaction of Miguel Díaz-Canel's government has reflected pragmatism forced by extreme economic suffocation and the collapse of basic services on the island.
Although Havana agreed to receive the CIA delegation to avoid a violent social outcome, it formally maintains its rhetoric defending national sovereignty, rejecting political conditions that threaten the socialist system.
Cuban officials used the meeting to present evidence that the island does not represent a threat to U.S. security, demanding in return its removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and an end to the naval blockade preventing fuel shipments from reaching the island.
Describing the country's daily deterioration, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura recently portrayed Cuba as a nation where old social protections have collapsed, while the political structure remains intact.
In an essay published on the website La Carta de las Ideas, Padura recalled that July 2021 protests represented an unprecedented social explosion on an island historically marked by strong surveillance and state control mechanisms.
The government response, he wrote, was a severe "order to fight" accompanied by exemplary judicial proceedings aimed not only at punishing, but also at discouraging future public expressions of dissent.
According to the writer, that precedent helps explain why, despite economic and social conditions now being even worse than in 2021, street demonstrations have been more limited than many outside Cuba expected.