In December 2014, President Barack Obama announced that hisadministration planned to pursue a new, open policy with the island nation of Cuba, the first such gesture since diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries were terminated in 1961, two years after the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
In July 2015, both Cuba and the U.S. re-opened embassies in Havana and Washington, DC, marking the establishment of official relations. Since that time, the Obama administration has eased travel restrictions to Cuba, and American telecom companies Verizon and Sprint have begun operations there, as have Airbnb and Netflix.
