'Sinister and Ominous': CIA Posts Photos of Director in Havana as US Blockade Leaves Cuba Without Fuel

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency met with Cuban officials in Havana on Thursday after the island nation's government said it had completely run out of fuel due to the Trump administration's oil blockade.

The CIA's X account posted photos of some of Director John Ratcliffe's meetings, blurring the faces of US intelligence officials who accompanied the agency chief. In a statement, the CIA said it met with Raúl Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raúl Castro; Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas; and the head of Cuba's intelligence services.

"This is one of the most sinister and ominous social media posts I've ever seen," legal scholar Maryam Jamshidi wrote in response to the CIA photos.

Ratcliffe, the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Cuba, decided to visit "to personally deliver President Donald 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 said.

A CIA official told NewsNation that "while the director emphasized that President Trump prefers dialogue, the Cubans should have no illusions that the President will not enforce red lines."

Trump has repeatedly threatened to seize Cuba by force, describing the island country as his next military target after Venezuela and Iran. Fears of an imminent military attack have grown in recent weeks amid Trump's belligerent rhetoric and surging US surveillance flights off Cuba's coast.

"I think I can do anything I want with [Cuba], if you want to know the truth," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in March. "A very weakened nation."

"This failed policy needs to end immediately. Every day, we are contributing to immense suffering in Cuba and a worsening humanitarian crisis."

The spy chief's trip came a day after Cuba's energy minister announced that months after Trump imposed an oil blockade on the island, "we have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel."

The same day, the US State Department dangled "$100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people." Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said Cuba's leadership is "willing to hear the details of the offer and the manner in which it would be implemented."

"We hope it is free of political maneuvers and attempts to exploit the shortages and suffering of a people under siege," he added. "The best aid that the US government could provide to the noble Cuban people at this or any time is to de-escalate the measures of the energy, economic, commercial, and financial blockade, intensified as never before in recent months, which severely affects all sectors of the Cuban economy and society."

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel echoed that sentiment, writing in a Thursday social media post that "the damage could be alleviated in a much easier and more expeditious way by lifting or easing the blockade, as it is well known that the humanitarian situation is coldly calculated and induced."

Progressive lawmakers in the US are imploring the Trump administration to end US economic warfare against Cuba, engage diplomatically with the country, and drop any plans for a military assault.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who has come under attack from Republican lawmakers for visiting Cuba in April, said Thursday that "Cuba has run out of diesel and fuel oil and is enduring some of the worst blackouts in decades because of the US’ cruel oil blockade."

"This failed policy needs to end immediately," said Jayapal. "Every day, we are contributing to immense suffering in Cuba and a worsening humanitarian crisis."