President Obama Tuesday afternoon announced that he would nominate the top U.S. diplomat serving in Cuba to become an ambassador to the communist nation — the first the U.S. has had in decades.
Obama tapped Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the current chief of mission, to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Cuba. The move will undoubtedly escalate tensions with congressional Republicans who have signaled they would oppose any effort to confirm an ambassador to the Communist nation.
“Jeff’s leadership has been vital throughout the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, and the appointment of an ambassador is a common sense step forward toward a more normal and productive relationship between our two countries,” Obama said in a statement.
Obama in late 2014 announced an effort to normalize relations with the island nation after decades of hostility between the two countries. In July, the U.S. and Cuba officially restored relations, and the Obama administration has eased travel restrictions between the two countries. Cruise-lines and commercial airlines now operating between U.S. cities and Havana, and more destinations expected this fall.
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both Cuban-Americans, have vowed to block any ambassador to Cuba nomination, setting up a showdown with Congress on the issue in Obama’s remaining months in office.
DeLaurentis has been in Havana since August 2014, and has been a member of the Foreign Service for 25 years.
The Senate already confirmed DeLaurentis once before, in 2011, for a prominent United Nations post. He has served in Havana twice before, once in the early 1990s after beginning his career in the Foreign Service, and then again from 1998 to 2002.
The White House last year appeared ready and even eager for a fight over naming the first ambassador to Cuba in more than 50 year, but waited until the Senate considered a number of highly politicized issues, including the status of the Iran agreement, before naming DeLaurentis.
Last year, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he expected a “robust” Senate debate over Obama’s selection of an ambassador.
“I’m confident that [the Senate] would be a venue for robust debate about how the policy changes that the president announced back in December aren’t just clearly in the best interests of the American people, they’re clearly in the best interests of the Cuban people as well,” he told reporters at the time.
