Cuba–United States relations

Cuba and the United States restored diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015, after relations had been severed in 1961 during the Cold War. U.S. diplomatic representation in Cuba is handled by the United States Embassy in Havana, and there is a similar Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. The United States, however, continues to maintain its commercial, economic, and financial embargo, making it illegal for U.S. corporations to do business with Cuba.

Relations began in early colonial times and were focused around extensive trade. In the 19th century, manifest destiny increasingly led to an American desire to buy, conquer, or otherwise take control of Cuba. This included an attempt to buy it from Spain in 1848 during the Polk administration, and a secret attempt to buy it in 1854 during the Pierce administration known as the Ostend Manifesto, which backfired, causing a scandal and severely weakening Pierce's administration. The hold of the Spanish Empire on its possessions in the Americas had already been reduced in the 1820s as a result of the Spanish American wars of independence; only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule until the Spanish–American War (1898) that resulted from the Cuban War of Independence. Under the Treaty of Paris, Cuba became a U.S. protectorate from 1898 to 1902; the U.S. gained a position of economic and political dominance over the island, which persisted after Cuba became formally independent in 1902.

Following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, bilateral relations deteriorated substantially. The US government had the Central Intelligence Agency recruit operatives in Cuba to carry out a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage on the island, killing civilians and causing economic damage. The CIA also trained and commanded pilots to bomb civilian airfields. The terrorism campaign was accelerated from early 1960. In response, on August 6, 1960, the Cuban government nationalized all American-owned oil refineries in Cuba. Along with sugar factories and mines, Cuba seized approximately $1.7 billion in U.S. oil assets. In October 1960, the U.S. imposed and subsequently tightened a comprehensive set of restrictions and bans against the Cuban government, ostensibly in retaliation for the nationalization of U.S. corporations' property. In 1961, the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Cuba and used Cuban exiles and CIA officers in failed attempt to invade the country. In November of that year, the U.S. engaged in a violent campaign of terrorist attacks and covert operations over several years in an attempt to bring down the Cuban government. The terrorist attacks killed significant numbers of civilians. In October 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred between the U.S. and Soviet Union over Soviet deployments of ballistic missiles in Cuba. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. fought Cuban Prime Minister and later President Fidel Castro's attempts to "spread communism" throughout Latin America and Africa. The Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford administrations of the 1960s and 1970s sometimes used back-channel talks to negotiate with the Cuban government.

In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama and new Cuban President Raúl Castro (the younger brother of Fidel Castro) announced the beginning of a process of normalizing relations between Cuba and the U.S., which media sources have named "the Cuban Thaw". Negotiated in secret in Canada and the Vatican City, and with the assistance of Pope Francis, the agreement led to the lifting of some U.S. travel restrictions, fewer restrictions on remittances, access to the Cuban financial system for U.S. banks, and the establishment of a U.S. embassy in Havana. The countries' respective "interests sections" in one another's capitals were upgraded to embassies in 2015. In 2016, Obama visited Cuba, becoming the first sitting U.S. president in 88 years to visit the island.

In June 2017, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending the policy for unconditional sanctions relief for Cuba, while also leaving the door open for a "better deal" between the U.S. and Cuba. The following November, it was announced that the business and travel restrictions which were loosened by the Obama administration would be reinstated and they went into effect on 9 November. In June 2019, the Trump administration announced new restrictions on American travel to Cuba.

In 2021, the Biden administration was initially labeled as "tougher than Donald Trump on the island's government", but later reversed some of the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration. In May 2022, the United States refused to invite the island nation to attend the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, drawing criticism from other Latin American countries.