Abstract
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba on January 3, 1961, few imagined that 54 years would pass before his decision was reversed. However, the restoration of diplomatic relations should not be confused with restoring normal relations between the two countries. In fact, Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro cannot restore a normal relationship because one has never existed (see Pérez-Stable 2011 and this volume). Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla emphasized this reality at the July 2015 opening of the Cuban embassy in Washington, remarking:
The challenge [of achieving the normalization of bilateral relations] is huge because there have never been normal relations between the United States of America and Cuba, in spite of the one and a half century of intensive and enriching links that have existed between both peoples.
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Brenner, P. (2016). Establishing, Not Restoring, Normal Relations between the United States and Cuba. In: Hershberg, E., LeoGrande, W.M. (eds) A New Chapter in US-Cuba Relations. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29595-4_2
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