_The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity._
**Interviewer**: Your initial stint in Cuba was as a consular affairs officer in Havana in 1991. In 2015, you became the Chargé d’affaires to Cuba and oversaw the opening of the country. Can you tell us about what U.S. diplomacy managed to accomplish in Cuba in that time?
**Amb. DeLaurentis**: It’s an interesting story in a way because, when I joined the foreign service, I had visions of Budapest and Bucharest and Berlin dancing in my head and I was sent to Havana and really didn’t know anything about Latin America. And of course, when I arrived in a place like Cuba, it was such a surprise to me that there were so many similarities, so many things that Americans and Cubans had in common despite the vast differences in the political system and so forth; obviously two countries, 90 miles away. And so I just became very curious about the relationship between these two countries.
And it was a time of profound change when I was there. I believe it was Christmas Day in 1991. That was my first few months of my tour. The Soviet Union flag came down at the Soviet embassy and the Russian tricolors went up and I watched the Russians just disappear from the island and so forth. But my goal always was to try and get to know the place, try to meet as many people as I could, even though the authorities were doing everything they could to discourage that kind of interaction. I really wanted to understand the place. And for a variety of reasons, it’s a theme that stayed with me through my entire career.
In my third posting, as chargé, that’s, I suppose, when everything came together. I was convinced when I left after the first tour in 1993 that our policy approach was all wrong. It just wasn’t working. You keep trying to do the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, it just didn’t come. And so that also began my own transition. But by the time I returned for the third time, there were already secret negotiations underway that had started in the Spring of 2013. I arrived in August of 2014. And I think what made those negotiations successful were a few factors. One, there was leadership and political will. This was something that President Obama talked about from the time he was campaigning, that we needed to try and turn the page, the policy that we had in place for a long time was not working. And we needed to find a different way. And it was also affecting U.S. interests and objectives in the entire region. So that was the impetus, at least on our side. Perhaps on the Cuban side, there was something similar or they had other ideas.
The second thing I would say is perseverance, because for the first few months of these negotiations, it was very tough. The sort of massive mistrust on the Cuban side had to be overcome. And I think the way that was done was a very brief encounter engineered between President Obama and President Castro at \[Nelson\] Mandela’s funeral. And the fact that the president shook President Castro’s hand, when everyone returned to the negotiating table, the atmosphere had changed a little bit and things began to move.
I’d say that the third would be the availability of a third party to validate what the two sides had agreed to. And in fact, in October, I believe, of 2014, there was a meeting at the Vatican, where they served as the, “Okay, United States, are you going to follow through on everything you said, that you told the Cubans you would do?” and, “Cuba, are you going to do everything you said, to the American officials, you would do?” Everyone said yes and the Vatican said, “Okay, this is good.” And so that then led to the announcement of the two presidents simultaneously on December 17th, 2014. And that’s really how everything was launched.
**Interviewer**: At the beginning of his first term, President Trump reversed policy towards Cuba. What has been the effect of that reversal and what lessons has it taught about the relationship between diplomacy and politics?
**Amb. DeLaurentis:** I think it was an official in the Kennedy administration way back in the early 1960s who said Cuba has now become part of our domestic politics. And it’s been really that way ever since. There’s a very strong constituency in South Florida that’s very interested U.S. policy toward Cuba. And that’s driven, I think, a lot of what we’ve seen unfold. I, of course, personally was very disappointed in the change. I thought it was a mistake. I thought we, the United States, were having an impact on the ground that, of course, came to an end. Cuba was changing, and I think if you’re present, you can have more an effect or impact on that change than if you’re not.
And of course, all the contact between the two countries pretty much came to a halt. The Trump administration put Cuba back on the State Sponsors of Terroris\[m\] list, but I think on the third or fourth to the last day of their administration, which told me, honestly, that it really had become kind of a cudgel of that administration. And I think the Trump administration was reflecting the views that they heard from South Florida, because people forget that in 2014 and ‘15, when we began this negotiation to reestablish diplomatic relations and try and normalize the relationship, then Donald Trump was very much in favor. He said, “Oh, this is fine. I, of course, could have negotiated a better deal, but this makes perfect sense.” And some of his people visited the island, like a lot of other commercial enterprises did, to have a look. And then, I think because of the politics and because he had strong support in South Florida, that changed. But I also believe that by our removing ourselves in such a dramatic way, it also provided more opportunities for adversaries like Russia and China to gain further influence. And of course, to the Cubans, it also said, the United States really can’t be trusted to keep its word.
**Interviewer:** The opening of Cuba took decades of work by yourself and other diplomats. What would you tell the American public about how that work advanced their interests?
**Amb. DeLaurentis:** Well, I think one of the benefits of a normal relationship is, of course, two countries 90 miles apart getting to know each other and getting to influence and have an impact on each other. I think for security reasons, American security reasons, again, it’s 90 miles away, we’re really talking about some of the security issues of our own border, if you will. And there are lots of issues, counter-narcotics, security environment, humanitarian issues, energy matters, that two countries 90 miles apart ought to be cooperating on as a matter of course. And this also seemed quite natural. And I can tell you that when I was there the third time between 2014 and 2017, there was a ‘who’s who’ of American businesses that came to Cuba looking for opportunities. And I think the benefits to both sides would have been enormous.
I remember, in particular, the visit of our then secretary of Health and Human Services toward the end of my third posting. She brought along a number of doctors and leading medical professionals from the United States, and we met with the Cuban counterparts. And you could just feel the enthusiasm on both sides was…it was palpable, right? Because Cuba had made some advances in terms of vaccines and other areas. And of course, the Americans had the resources, the technology, and bringing these two things together, I think, would have been enormously helpful for both countries. And ultimately, I think American involvement in a place like Cuba, helps or contributes to an environment in which Cubans themselves will have more space to think about what their future looks like. I remember particularly those Cubans becoming more involved in the entrepreneurial sector of the economy that was opening up. They started to focus more on the future of their own country than plotting to leave, for example. So, I think there are a lot of benefits to a more normal relationship that will ultimately benefit Americans as much as it benefits Cubans.