Cuba Watch

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba on Thursday for meetings with senior Cuban officials, including the grandson of former communist leader Raúl Castro, as the Trump administration pursues renewed pressure and negotiations with the island’s government.

According to US and Cuban officials, Ratcliffe met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Cuban Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, and Cuban intelligence leaders during the visit. Discussions reportedly focused on intelligence cooperation, economic conditions, and regional security issues.

A CIA official said Ratcliffe traveled to Havana “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 United States, with “America First” President Donald Trump at the helm, along with his anti-Castro Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has been putting the pressure on the communist regime founded in 1959 by that infamous revolutionary, Fidel Castro. In an executive order issued in May, the president deemed the island country, which is only 90 miles off the Florida Keys, an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” and the administration has been busy since slamming them with sanctions and cutting off their oil supplies.

The possibility of a showdown between the United States and Russia is looming as a Russian tanker laden with oil steams toward Cuba and a U.S. blockade.

The Anatoly Kolodkin has 730,000 barrels of oil aboard, according to Politico, and is heading for the Cuban port of Matanzas. It could arrive in two to three days, Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a senior maritime intelligence analyst at Windward AI, said.

The Kolodkin was escorted through the English Channel by the Russian navy, but since then the tanker has been on its own.

Politico reported that former Trump administration officials expect the tanker to be stopped, but that current administration officials are keeping quiet about what the U.S. will do.

Russia has not said for certain that it plans to test the blockade and create the biggest showdown since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, preferring to drop hints wrapped in bland statements of support for Cuba, which has been under an oil blockade ever since American forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Cuba relied on Venezuelan oil, which has been cut off since January.

About 11 million people on the island nation of Cuba have lost power after the country’s electrical grid completely collapsed on Monday.

Cuba relies on oil to run the power grid, and a U.S. embargo has worsened the energy crisis it was already suffering under. The U.S. ended oil deliveries to Cuba from Venezuela and threatened other countries with steep tariffs if they provided oil to the nation.

‘Taking Cuba in some form, yeah, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.’

The state-owned power operator said efforts were under way to restore power to the island. In the meantime, energy has been rationed and many services have shut down.

“The impact [of the blockade] is tremendous. It is most brutally manifested in these energy issues,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on Friday. “This causes anguish among the population.”

(Why should we trust Marco Rubio? Girl, please. Where have you been the last year… Oops, sorry, my inner monologue escaped and got the best of me. Back to the president.)

Trump laid it out like this:

Well, Marco Rubio is doing a great job. I think he’s going to go down as the greatest secretary of State in history. Look at what we’ve done as a presidency. Look at what we’ve done as an administration. They trust Marco, and so do the American people… He’s been successful no matter where he’s been. He also speaks the language, which is always nice and always helpful.

REUTERS–Cuban forces killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speedboat that entered Cuban waters on Wednesday and opened fire on a Cuban patrol, the Cuban government said at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.

Cuba’s Interior Ministry said the group was comprised of anti-government Cubans, some of whom were previously wanted in Cuba. It said the group came from the U.S. armed with assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, ballistic vests and telescopic sights.

An additional Cuban suspect was detained inside Cuban territory in connection with the plot, the statement said.

“According to preliminary statements from the detainees, they intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes,”