Cuba and the US: Three Tenth Anniversaries

By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez on July 20, 2025

These days mark the tenth anniversary of three distinct yet related events that are a significant part of the history of official bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States. July 1, 2015, was the day that the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two nations was announced. On January 3, 1961, Washington broke formal ties with Cuba as part of the first stage of the confrontation against the Cuban Revolution that led to the Bay of Pigs invasion. As a result of a negotiation process initiated under the Gerald Ford administration and concluded under James Carter, on September 1, 1977, the so-called interest sections were officially opened in both capitals. The US section in Havana was formally under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy in that capital, while the Cuban representation in Washington was initially assumed by the Embassy of the Czech Republic until that nation’s split, and then it also passed to Swiss responsibility.

In the new situation, Cuba formally reopened its embassy on July 20, 2015, in the same building where its diplomatic representation had been located since 1919, which also housed the interests section.

The United States took the same step on August 14, 2015, occupying the building that had been its embassy since the end of the pre-revolutionary era, later converted into an interests section. These reopening ceremonies were charged with official and popular symbolism.

The Cuban foreign minister, together with a large delegation of political, artistic, sports, and scientific figures and officials from the island, attended the ceremony at the building on 16th Avenue in Washington, D.C. The then-secretary of state, also accompanied by a group of former officials and U.S. figures, was present at the ceremony, which took place in the building located across from Havana’s Malecón.

On other occasions, the importance of these moments in history, the previous negotiation process, and the avenues that opened up for both governments at that time have been analyzed. Little has been said, however, about the experiences of both peoples, although we can only speak of examples and it is not possible to generalize.

Two years before the formal ceremony in Washington, a series of maintenance works had been carried out on the Cuban representation building, which were accelerated after the announcements of December 17, 2014.

When it was certain that we would have embassies in both capitals, a flagpole had to be planted in the garden to raise the Cuban flag at the opening ceremony and keep it there permanently.

Although we had our own specialists to undertake the task, city regulations stipulate that this type of work can only be carried out by certified companies, which carry out underground checks to avoid damage to water supply or electrical connections. Several options for carrying out the work were considered, until a small company was chosen that offered a good balance between quality of service and price.

The owner was a proud citizen of Irish origin who took on all the details with the utmost responsibility. On the day everything was ready to plant the flagpole, he asked the head of the Cuban mission for permission to proceed and took off his hat as a sign of respect while the heavy piece of aluminum took its final place. The Cubans who were around him, without agreeing to do so, sang the Cuban national anthem. The modest businessman stepped back a few meters so as not to interrupt the intimacy of the moment, but when we realized he was not among us, we invited him to join us and he said emotionally, “I realize that this is one of the most important jobs of my life.”

Part of the renovation work had to do with the access route for vehicles to the interior of the Cuban building. The same bidding process described above was carried out, and we opted for an experienced construction company that worked with great speed and precision and, like many others, employed a large number of immigrants of Mexican origin. As the work was nearing completion, a group of journalists who had been hanging around the building every day in search of exclusives on the upcoming event approached one of the workers and simply asked him what all the construction activity was about so early in the morning. The Mexican worker, very proud of his origins, stood up straight, surprised by the question, and began his answer by saying, “I don’t know if you know that a historic event is going to take place here, and I feel privileged to be part of it.” He gave the impression of being a wise Aztec addressing European newcomers who knew nothing about his culture.

On July 1, when the announcements of the reestablishment were made, an Afro-descendant woman approached the perimeter fence of the Cuban-owned building and, with visible emotion, shouted “Congratulations” and raised her fist in victory.

She was just one of the residents of the neighboring buildings on 16th Avenue, most of whom share the same African ancestors as the Cubans. These are just a few anonymous glimpses amid a whirlwind of gestures from different sectors of American society, who saw no limits in celebrating what was happening.

It was extremely difficult to draw up a list of 572 guests who would attend the formal ceremony at the Cuban embassy, given the number of people interested and the capacity limits of the premises. Something similar happened with the local and foreign press, which had to settle for covering the events from the Cuban consulate on the opposite side of the street from the embassy.

Most of the visitors to the Cuban compound paid tribute to the enormous Cuban flag displayed indoors, which was the same one that had been lowered in January 1961, taken proudly to Havana, and kept there in the custody of the City Historian, waiting patiently for the moment when it would be displayed victorious once again. The flag that was raised on July 20 and used only that once, at the request of the historian himself, was a gift from Cubans living in the United States who also took part in the celebrations. That flag was carried in the steady hands of young officers from the Cuban Armed Forces’ ceremonial battalion, who placed it at the top of the flagpole.

Countless professional and amateur photographers waited to capture the image of the day, but there was no wind. When only a few patients remained waiting, the Cuban flag unfurled to its full extent, almost saying, “Look at me, I’m here again.”

At that very moment, when it seemed that emotions had reached their peak, a city garbage truck drove past the embassy garden and one of its crew members raised his fist in the air and shouted “Viva Cuba” in Spanish, adding an epithet that we cannot repeat here, but which puts soul, heart, and life into the phrase.

According to the planned protocol, speeches were given as part of a reception, which gradually lost its formal tone and gave way to a series of hugs between religious leaders from both sides who were convinced that God had heard their prayers, business people who dreamed of doing business under the protection of the law, students who had once met their peers in Cuba to dream of the future, poets who were determined to write new binational and bilingual verses, and members of solidarity groups who for years had been committed to a rapprochement that even the best academics had not foreseen.

These emotions were reflected in congressmen and senators who witnessed this human exchange, so rare in their lives.

The deeply popular roots of the process that was just beginning were perhaps one of the main guarantees for the successes and agreements that were about to happen. The highest expression of all this genuine sentiment took place during the unusual movement of people between the two countries in 2017, 2018, and part of 2019, as well as the various massive cultural festivals that took place during those years, which united and brought together Cuban and US creators.

As part of this process, hundreds of farmers and union leaders visited Cuba, and when they had the opportunity to work in the fields with their Cuban counterparts, they did not need translators. Seeds, inclement weather, and harvests were a common heritage among them. Hundreds of scientists, particularly in the field of health, compared their findings and saved patients together. Dozens of children’s sports teams competed in friendly matches and then shared caps, hugs, and short phrases in each other’s languages.

In the midst of a process in which officials and specialists from both sides were trying to ensure that their negotiations reflected the dialogue taking place between the two societies, something unexpected happened and a process of reversal began, led by a minority of opportunists who acted under the protection of Donald Trump’s first administration, especially in its last two years.

None of them will ever be able to claim that they were responding to popular demand, or that they were accompanied in their misdeeds, then and now, by broad sectors of American society, much less Cuban society.

These three anniversaries will not be cause for official celebrations. They may only be remembered in journalists’ notes or researchers’ reflections. But in the privacy of most of the protagonists of that time, there may be some reflection on why a few were able to defeat so many, or why it was possible to undo with a stroke of a pen something that took so much time and energy to build.

 José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez  Was the first Cuban Ambassador to the United States since 1961 and is currently the Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba.

Source: International Policy Research Center, translation: Resumen Latinoamericano – English